(Opening Statement) “Good morning, everybody. So, just a couple things, just want to go over the injuries from the game. We lost James Robinson and it was confirmed that he did tear his Achilles. We talked about that yesterday after the game, but [it’s] hard to replace a guy like James Robinson in our offense. Like I said basically last night, he’s such a rock and such a great guy around the team not only as an offensive player, but just as a leader on our team, so that’s a big blow. We’re going to miss him. Also, Logan Cooke, he injured his right knee during the game a little bit. [It’s] not a major injury, but he could miss a little bit of time, so we will not have him. Then the rest of the guys are day to day. We still have the COVID list that’s going on. Because of the things we had there at the end of the week with Josh Allen, Jordan Smith, Myles [Jack], and Laviska [Shenault Jr.] and Ben Bartch, we’re in intensive protocols here which basically puts us in wearing masks all the time here indoors and then other situations with meetings. With that, opening it for questions.”
(On WR Marvin Jones Jr.’s goal line catch possibly being a touchdown) “We’ve only seen it from our copies. I haven’t seen the TV copy yet. I don’t know what that looks like, but the copies that we have, it definitely looks like they should’ve at least stopped the play and taken a look at it. We have three views on our All-22 and it’s disappointing that they didn’t take a look at it. You kind of would think that they would, but we will turn it in and see what they have to say.”
(On not being able to challenge that play since it was in the last two minutes of the game) “Right. So, the red flag is in the pocket but you can’t use it under two minutes and that’s really the responsibility of the league on those types of plays. That is what it’s implemented for, for them to be able to take a look at that.”
(On the confusion on the final play of the game) “Yeah, we just didn’t line up correctly at the beginning and then we had a motion that went along with it. Once we weren’t all set, we were down on the clock a little bit, so we were trying to move the guy that was in motion, and we never all fully got set. [It’s] not something that should happen at the moment in the game and something we have to get corrected.”
(On his frustration on the last play and QB Trevor Lawrence being a rookie in that situation) “I would like all of us to get that done, to do a better job there. I thought really during the game offensively it was a smooth game. They were operating really well. We moved the ball kind of up and down the field, thought we made a lot of big plays. We had good scoring drives, good long drives as well. But to end on a play like that, that is really disappointing. As you said, when Trevor [Lawrence] gets older and a little bit more experienced, I think we can say, ‘Hey, just line up, get over here, get everybody set before we go ahead and snap that ball.’”
(On P Logan Cooke’s injury) “Yes, he’s in jeopardy of missing a game.”
(On bringing in a replacement punter) “I actually just left [a meeting] with [General Manager] Trent [Baalke], so we’re in the process of gathering that information.”
(On RB Carlos Hyde being able to return this week) “Carlos Hyde? No.”
(On RB Dare Ogunbowale’s performance against the Jets) “All that is in the work. I thought Dare [Ogunbowale] really did a nice job for us to step in those moments, a guy that hadn’t gotten a ton of carries throughout the season, really did a nice job stepping in there. [He’s] always a guy that we’re confident in in putting in protection situations, so he’s been solid there. But to see him run the ball for us, he did a nice job.”
(On if he has second guessed the decision to run the ball on first-and-10 from the 32-yard line at the end of the game with no timeouts) “No, not at all. If I remember right, we were over a minute, I think it was 1:02 at the snap. So no, [I] don’t second guess that one. If you want to take an opportunity to pop a run, then I didn’t have an issue with it with [Passing Game Coordinator Brian] Schotty [Schottenheimer] there. A lot of times you get it and we didn’t get it at that moment, but no, I wouldn’t change that one.”
(On the replacement punter being able to take over kickoff responsibilities as well) “That would be ideal is to find someone that can kick off and really basically boom them, so we can get them out of the end zone, but we have to continue to search [free agents] for that.”
(On P Logan Cooke handling kickoffs all year if it weren’t for his knee injury) “Yeah, I think he’s done that in his past as well and so that was something that we were looking for. He did have a little bit of a knee [injury] going on, so weren’t able to do that with him.”
(On QB Trevor Lawrence’s performance against the Jets) “Like I said last night, I was really pleased with Trevor [Lawrence]. I thought it was one of his best games that he’s played here with us. I thought he did a really nice job of you saw him taking some shots down the field when there were opportunities for those to be there. Also, [he] did a great job in checking the ball down, had a lot of competitions even on that last two-minute drive. I think there was like seven, at least seven in a row of getting completions, which we haven’t done that, so [it was] a really good job there. But obviously the two big glaring things are the turnovers or the two balls that were on the ground. I think he could’ve handled the one situation where we ended up losing it and gave them the ball. We definitely could’ve done a better job there with the decision of what to do on that play. There’s sometimes the play’s not there, just continue to move out of the pocket and get rid of it. Then the one down on the goal line, fortunately we were able to recover that one, but he has to do a better job of securing it as a runner.”
(On the previously mentioned turnover) “We had a play action pass with it down the field and they did a good job, got some penetration. The way the play was designed, he’s already moved over, so he’s basically out of the pocket. He could just continue to move in that direction, and he can ditch the ball there and really just save us a bad play.”