[h=3]
The transcript of Coach Pat Shurmur's post game press conference following the Browns' 31-13 loss to the Tennessee Titans.[/h]
CLEVELAND BROWNS COACH PAT SHURMUR
(Opening statement)- “Disappointing lost, I would say. I told the team after the game, I came in here and we talked about two team victories the last two weeks and this was a team loss. You can boil it down however you want to boil it down.
You can talk about usage of players and plays and stuff, but at the end of the day we lost. We let three big plays stretch the game out. They throw to the tight end, we don’t get him on the ground, they go down and score. A pick six where he’s clearly out of the pocket the best thing to do there is throw the ball away, not throw it late down the middle which he knows, don’t do it. Then they hit us on another pass on a swing arrow. Those three plays stretched the game out and then it makes it difficult to do all the things that you planned to do because of those things. Do I think we played very well, no. There are a lot of things that we need to get better at and it starts with me. We’ll have some times here in the Bye Week to get focused on what we’re going to do as we move forward. Typically, on a Bye Week whether you’ve won them all or lost them all, we just happen to be half and half, you decide what you’re going to do as you move forward and I’m sure everything you guys are going to ask me about will be talked about and discussed. I think the guys competed hard I just don’t think we played extremely well and there’s areas in the game where I think I can coach better. The Cleveland Browns lost today and that’s my responsibility.
Thought we had a great week of practice, but part of the message was that the practice doesn’t guarantee victory. You have to go out and do it and we didn’t do it and that’s the reality of it. You’ll never hear me say anything else, this is a no excuses world and we got beat. I credit them, they’re a good football team and we knew that coming in. Not extremely flashy, just very good and they played a good game and they won. I would compliment them, they’ve got a good operation and they beat us.”
(On going for it on fourth and one with Armond Smith)- “It was fourth and one, I felt like we needed something, we felt like that was the play, we flipped it to him (Armond Smith) and they had a guy run through. We flip it to him and that’s one of those where it has a chance to go the distance. Now, we stopped them, it was fourth and one and my understanding was our defense did a nice job of stopping them; they didn’t get any points off of that, but I think there’s a place to be aggressive and I was trying to give us a little bit of a bump there. He’s a fast guy, fastest guy we’ve got, and we felt like if we got him to the perimeter it was a chance for a big play.”
(On if they sent a blitz)- “No, they had a guy run through and we blocked the guy we thought and it didn’t work.”
(On thinking about going for it on fourth and inches in the third quarter deep in their own territory)- “That is a little different story. We’re way back in our end and the game wasn’t out of reach at that point so absolutely I think there. The deal there is Mo’s (Massaquoi) got to get the first.”
(On third and one before the fourth and inches giving the ball to Peyton Hillis)- “We ran the ball with Peyton (Hillis). He was the fullback. It was a dive play. We were trying to surprise them. There’s a lot of ways to run the ball on third and one. Quick hitters to our best runner, quick hitter and you see that quite often and they’re not always lead plays. We didn’t execute it, we didn’t get it done.”
(On if he has a physical running game being a pass first offense)- “I think we do. I think there were times in the game there where we ran the ball pretty effectively.”
(On if he was disappointed in McCoy for laying on the ground after he threw an interception)- “No, I was yelling him to get up and tackle the guy. He got hit so I’m not disappointed. I think there’s area’s where we need to get better and he needs to tackle the guy. He battled, he had his mistakes like everyone else.”
(On if there is any news with Joe Haden’s injury)- “I skipped right over that I’m sorry, I apologize. Let me go back on the injury thing, Joe Haden has a knee sprain and he’ll be checked out and then Mo Massaquoi has a shoulder thing and he came out of the game so those are the two guys. I’m sorry, I should have hit that first, I was getting distracted.”
(On if Haden hurt himself in the first half and played through it for awhile)- “Yeah.”
(On if Scott Fujita has to do a better job with man to man coverage)- “Scott had him man to man and once the ball was caught I think it was Usama (Young). We just have to tackle him. They’re going to make plays where the ball gets pitched down field a few yards and then we have to eliminate the big play. I’ll look at it tomorrow. Again, I always reserve judgment for what happened, but based on what I saw is that they made a nice throw and catch and we have to get him on the ground.”
(On if he needs a bigger threat in order to stretch the field and open things up)- “I don’t know about stretching the field, I do know this we have to throw the ball in rhythm, catch it and make yards, however we do it. The guys that we have are the guys we have and I have to feel like we can be effective offensively throwing and running.”
(On being competitive the first three games and not so much today)- “Well you see what happens when you let big plays happen. The game changes on any team that plays and we let the score get out of hand, which makes it difficult. Then you’re fighting, scratching and clawing and you can’t do that.”
(On if Montario Hardesty has issues catching the ball out of the backfield)- “I don’t think he does. I think he dropped a couple and we will get that corrected.”
(On if Hardesty’s drops affected him mentally throughout the game)- “No, I think it was just a couple of bad plays, but there is nothing wrong with the way he catches the football. He just has to do it better.”
(On his thoughts about T.J. Ward’s pass coverage) - “I think he challenged, but I don’t know about him struggling. I wouldn’t make that statement until I sit down and watch the tape. I don’t know what to tell you there. I know he battled and I think there were completions happening. There was one in the red zone and I know the coverage was tight. I don’t know what you are referring to, but I’m sure he’ll tell you he needs to play better.”
(On an ESPN report stating there was talk in the Browns’ locker room that Hillis didn’t play last week because of his contract situation)- “I was made aware of that by Neal (Gulkis) here after the game. I don’t know what to address there. You would have to try to find out who is talking about that because it didn’t come from me. I don’t know anything about that.”
(On if there were any concerns about Hillis other than he was sick)- “No, Peyton was sick, that was my understanding.”
(On if it was tough to get pressure on Matt Hasselbeck)- “It seemed like he had some time; we’ll have to look at it and see why it didn’t happen. I thought a couple of times they did a nice job of blocking the blitz and I saw some other times where he got the ball out. But, I didn’t see anything magical about what they were doing. I think they executed well.”
(On if it was just a function of the game that McCoy threw 61 passes and set a Browns franchise record)- “Absolutely, yeah I don’t know what he was, 40-for-60 or something. It’s typical you know and that’s why when you look at yards and all that stuff those statistics get skewed.”
(On what he said to McCoy after he threw that interception)- “Well, I coach him like you would. You’re out of the pocket, you either throw the ball away unless there’s a guy clearly open and he didn’t do that or you run with it and get yardage and get down like he did a couple other times. It’s just like anything, you have to continue to work on the little things and as we go through the season here you’ll see every once in awhile some bad things pop up that we’ve got to get corrected.”
(On if there are any concerns with McCoy going forward)- “No, Colt’s our quarterback. I look forward to working with him and helping him lead this team to victories so no I don’t have any concern.”
