On if he is perplexed as to why the Browns offense is not clicking the way a lot of people expected:
“I would not say perplexed. I think we have to play better. I think we know that we are not playing at our level we expect. It is not like we do not know what we are supposed to be doing or we do not know why we are not producing – we have to play better, we have to play sounder and we as a line have to protect better and have to open up more holes in the run game. We just have to play better. It is not confusing. We are not throwing our hands up in the air saying, ‘I am not sure how this is not working out.’ We know what we need to do better.”
On how tough it was to see T Jack Conklin sustain an elbow injury yesterday:
“It is tough. Those injuries are scary. It kind of puts a pit in your stomach when you see something like that. Feel terrible for Jack. Those are just really tough. You hate seeing those.”
On the Browns OL’s starting five players not completing a full game together this season:
“Obviously, ideally, you want to play with your [starting] five. We have not been able to, but we have had (G) Blake (Hance) step up and we have (T) James (Hudson III) step up in situations. That is the National Football League. Guys are going to get banged up. There are going to be guys that get hurt, and you have to have the next guy up step up and play well. It has not been great health-wise for us, but we are going to have to find a way.”
On it seeming like injuries may be up across the NFL this season and if the data shows that is the case:
“At this point, we do not have that data. The data for the regular season will not come in until after the regular season is over for us so we will not get that injury data for a while. I do not have anything to relate it to at this point.”
On if it seems like injuries are up across the NFL or if a number of star players recently sustaining season-ending injuries is factoring into that perception:
“It is tough to tell. I think there was the same kind of thought last year when we had that. I feel like it was Week 2 or 3 that we had that one week where we lost like six big-name players to season-ending injuries. Again, before I put an opinion out there, I try to wait until the data comes out to figure out exactly what we are looking at.”
On the Browns sustaining a number of soft tissue injuries this season and if he has any involvement in determining why or theories as to why those are occurring:
“No, I think we have a great training staff. Sometimes you just have kind of an injury bug that hits you. I do not think there is any rhyme or reason. I think what we have done is scientifically sound when it comes to how we ramped up, how we practiced and monitoring the load we have. Sometimes you just get bad luck there when it comes to those soft tissue injuries, but I have not seen anything that would make me believe there is something we are doing incorrectly when it comes to injuries.”
On Hance’s contributions to the Browns OL this season:
“Blake has battled. It is not easy to kind of be that guy who always has to kind of be in the bullpen ready to go. He has done great stepping in, going out there and providing a good value for us of being able to play both sides and being able to start. Kudos to him for what he has been able to do this year being thrown into a position that probably was not going to be his role going into the year but with injuries has turned into his role.”