(Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
Head Coach Gregg Williams:
Opening statement:
“A good tempo day. A young team bounces back fast, and they did. Their bodies are sore [coming back] a day earlier. This is normally a day that they are continuing to get their bodies back and jumping on an opponent on a normal Tuesday. We did all of that yesterday. They came in today with a very good mindset, a very good practice, very good competition, excellent execution. (QB) Baker (Mayfield) had a really live arm today, too. All of those guys practiced well.”
On how live Mayfield’s arm is:
“Today it was off the charts. You will love this, the first thought in my mind was young, young arm, not tired. As we get older, you have to have more rest in between throwing them. From Major League Baseball, all of the things that you do in baseball and stuff in giving those guys rest. He had a live day on Sunday, but (snaps fingers) came back today and it looked like it was even more live today. The first thing I thought was ‘young’.”
Greg Williams: On if the live arm could be a blessing and a curse for Mayfield and the offense:
“I would say this, I always think of it in a positive way because once you start going down that other road is when things start to multiply, domino effect and everything. He is extremely accurate. He is a really good decision maker. He learns from everything. The fact that he is as accurate as he is, it is never going to worry about him forcing the ball into a tight window. The good quarterbacks, some of the times when some of us may judge a throw that, ‘Wow, that was not a very good throw’ – why? Because it was on his back shoulder? It was on his back shoulder because that is the way that the guy [throws the player open]. (Saints QB) Drew Brees and some of those guys – (Pro Football Hall of Fame QBs) Joe Montana, Warren Moon, (former Broncos and Colts QB) Peyton Manning and all of the guys that I have been with or gone against – will throw the guy open. He is doing that. That is a natural thing. That is not something that can be overly taught at this level. If we have to spend a lot of time trying to teach that at this level, he probably will never ever get it.”
QB Baker Mayfield:
On if he woke up feeling dangerous:
“I think you know the answer to that one (laughter).”
On the TD pass to WR Jarvis Landry:
“We were honestly expecting them to bring a different coverage. They kind of let him run free. The safety on the backside, you could see that I kind of hesitated a little bit to see if the safety would turn his head, but when I realized that he was chasing Jarvis down the field, I let it go because he is not going to make a play on the ball with his head turned and I trust Jarvis to make those plays. It is a 50-50 ball. That is why he is here is to make those plays. Unbelievable catch.”
On the long pass to WR Breshad Perriman on the first play of the opening drive:
“It is awesome. That play puts that safety in a bind. We are trusting (TE) David (Njoku) to have speed across the field. If that safety did not attach to him like he did, then we are putting the post up to Breshad. It is just playing the numbers game. We are trusting Breshad on the outside to win, and he absolutely did.”
On the aggressive offensive gameplan:
“That is how we need to play. I talked about it last week in the second half how he played and we are pushing the ball down the field. That is the kind of talent we have. We need to be able to do that – stretch the teams and then open up the screens and the run game. Yeah, we would love to be able to run the ball early, but when we are throwing the ball like that, that is what happens.”