Danny Crossman – September 14, 2023
Download PDF version
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman
(I saw a story that Week 1 had the lowest rate of kick returns since like 2000. I don’t believe that you guys had a return. I’m curious, what are the teaching points with these new rule changes?) – “For me, I think it’s a couple things. If you look around the games, I think it was number one, in a lot of the early games, there wasn’t a lot of scoring. So you can say percentages, but when there’s not a lot of kicks, obviously that’s going to have a factor in it. I think obviously then early in the season, between the ball traveling much better than it is going to be later in the year in a lot of places, along with teams still getting adjusted to the roster. You go through preseason with certain guys playing and you think this is going to be my guy, that’s going to be my guy. Next thing you know, you get to the regular season and it doesn’t always necessarily hold true. Now you’ve got a couple of guys that you’re blending in that haven’t gotten either a whole lot of reps or have changed their position. I think maybe people are playing it a little bit closer to the vest in Week 1.”
(Fourteen kickoffs and zero returns is terribly boring. It’s a waste of everybody’s time. It’s terrible. I like the XFL thing where you don’t have the big collisions, they line up closer to each other. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Would you be cool with that?) – “Again, whatever rules they give me to play by, I’m going to play. Sadly, they don’t ask me. (laughter)”
(The special teams coaches had preferences and then they went against it right?) – “They’re going to do what they think is best. It’s their show, and they can do that. I think it’s an important play and I think as we’ve all seen, as the year progresses, you’re going to see it’s going to become more and more of a factor. As long as it’s part of the game, I’ll play by whatever rules they make it. But I think here in seven or eight weeks, we’re going to be having some different conversations as the season progresses and different things happen.”
(Sunday, you watched K Jason Sanders miss the extra point and you thought what?) – “I didn’t think anything. I’m like, yeah, he pushed it. Again, sometimes those things happen. He had seven good kickoffs, made three field goals. You don’t ever like it. You don’t ever want it. But then it’s a matter of getting onto the tape and looking at it and trying and figure out why it happened. Was it the snap? Was it the hold? Was it his tempo? Why did it happen? It was a little push right. Can’t have it. Don’t want it. Our job is to score points when we go out on the field, but not a concern whatsoever. I don’t ever make anything a bigger deal as it is just because of when it happens. We fumbled the ball inside the five-yard line. If it happens in the first quarter, you don’t think a lot about it. If it happens in the fourth quarter, it’s doomsday. So what happens, happens. You’ve got to sort of, at times, take the timing and the sequence of the game out of it and focus on why it happened.”
(At some point, I don’t know if you’ve had this in your career, there’s going to be a questionable field goal call in terms of when it goes over the upright, will any part of the ball be on the outside thus making it a field goal that’s not good. I know it’s not reviewable. What recourse do you have in that instance? Would you and the head coach just scream at the referees? What happens then?) – “Nothing. (I know) this is a boring conversation but there’s nothing you can do about it. And even if it was reviewable, what you’ve seen, and you guys follow it, unless it’s just something crazy – which something like that is not going to be just cut and dry where they are going to reverse it – they’re always going to favor what was called on the field. So it’s going to be what it’s going to be. Getting upset, to me it’s ‘hey, move on to the next play.’ Make sure the players, you preach that to them. ‘Move on the next play. Don’t lose your mind because you’re not changing it.’ It’s the same thing for us as coaches.”
(Why don’t they just make the goalposts longer? Have they always been the exact same length?) – “No, they actually did make them higher several years ago. They lengthened them several years ago for that same conversation. Eventually, what happens is you make them too high, and then as the wind blows, you can’t control it. Then as the wind blows, it’s a moving target and that even makes it more difficult. As a coach, I don’t want that for my kicker.”
(You almost need like some laser technology.) – “I wouldn’t be surprised if sometime that doesn’t happen. We keep seeing it and you’re just like me. We’re still using the chain and the post. Meanwhile, you’re watching on TV and there’s lines that can differentiate every possible thing. But on the field, we’re still doing this. I think eventually at some point, you’re going to see the technology that, again, is available. I don’t know what the cost is but I think there is a way.”
(I wanted to ask you about LB Cameron Goode because we’ve seen him, from the beginning of training camp be part of the core special teams unit. What has he done? Or, what does a player, in particular for you to say, ‘that’s my guy?’) – “I think it’s a combination. When you look at Cam, and you look at all these college players, the first comment I get from so many of them when we get about halfway through OTAs is, ‘this is so different from college football.’ I think the emphasis, the rules, obviously, how things change. In college football, you snap it and they just run down the field. It’s a totally different game. But he’s a guy that’s gotten better, was able to overcome some nicks. (He) was really playing well in the spring and then got hurt and missed a couple of weeks, which, for him, you think it could be a setback, but it wasn’t. Once we got to training camp, he was full ahead and was right back on and has really done a good job with the classroom stuff. Then, obviously, most importantly, been able to transition and take that to the field. (I) really like where he’s at and hopefully we’re just scratching the surface.”
(As long as I can remember, the Patriots have always made up margins on special teams with positive performances. What is it about them this year that makes them so challenging on special teams?) – “Well, to me, it’s like everything. They build their team differently than just about everybody else in the National Football League. They have certain guys that are there, they’re going to play on all four special teams phases and they’re going to be very, very good to great players. They don’t have a role, they’re never going to have a role offensively and defensively but they’re going to be outstanding in the kicking game, which really separates some things. That is their core position. They will do individual drills with just the special teams guys. Now they’re working through some the things with the young specialists, because historically, as we all know, they’ve always had outstanding specialists to go with it. But these two young guys are talented, they’re going to be good players. The way they build a team and the emphasis they put on it, they’re a little bit different than most of the teams in the National Football League.”
