Opening statement:
"This is a great challenge for us this week, playing the New York Jets. You are going up against a defense with seven first-round draft picks. It is a great challenge for us. We are excited about the opportunity to play against a great defense in a great venue in a great city. I am really thankful and proud of where we are at this point with our coaching staff and our players. I think they have done a great job. Again, we are excited about this opportunity."
On WR Dwayne Bowe being listed third on the depth chart and expecting more from him:
"I am going to lean back on (Head) Coach (Mike) Pettine and the depth chart thing. Different personnel groupings have different depth charts. I told Dwayne we expect more out of him. It was disappointing that he got hurt so early. It was not all his fault that he hasn't been on the field. He didn't want to get hurt. I feel bad for the guy that he is in this predicament. At the same time, we need Dwayne to come along here and be a big part of what we are doing."
On how Bowe has responded to his comments:
"Dwayne has been great. He has been great since he stepped foot in this building. He really has for a guy that had as much success has he has had. He bought into what we our doing. He bought into our plan and playing like a Brown. He has just had a little case of bad luck."
On the hamstring affecting Bowe, referring to specific passes in the Chicago preseason game:
"Yes, it is injury with him. There is no doubt about it. When you watch the Kansas City-Arizona games in our cut-up this week in terms of we are getting ready for (Jets Head Coach) Todd Bowles – he was at Arizona last year so we are watching a lot of Arizona tape – the Kansas City game is in our cut-ups, and you can just tell that he is holding back a little bit with that hamstring. We have to get him healthy. I am really excited for Dwayne when he does get to that point."
On how much it helps having a second coach on the field in QB Josh McCown:
"It helps me a ton. I will be honest with you, in the first meeting with the players, there are two sure things: you are going to pay taxes and I don't have all the answers. I told those guys in our first meeting and it has been great to have Josh there. I wouldn't say as a sounding board but as a voice of reason to say, 'Have you thought about doing it this way?' I have come to learn with Josh and with my past experience with Josh that he is not just going to come and tell you something if he really doesn't believe in it. He is not just going to throw stuff at the wall and see if it sticks. It's been great for me. As a coach, if you have a veteran quarterback – I had (Cardinals QB) Carson Palmer – if you don't have a huge ego, you can learn a lot from those guys and the way they see the game. It has been awesome having Josh here in that type of role."
On his role in getting McCown to come to Cleveland while he had offers elsewhere:
"I would like to say I played a major role, but you have to ask him that. I can tell you this: I was in contact with him very soon after he got released. Josh and I had stayed in contact throughout our time since 2007. It is not like I was calling him out of the blue. He and I talked several times. The day he got released, I contacted him and I just wanted to talk to him and see where he was at. I didn't know where Josh was at the point. I know he had been out of the league for a while. I didn't know if he was going to go back to Charlotte and coach his son's high school football and baseball teams. I just wanted to see where he was at. Then as we went along the process that got further down the road, we started talking about him becoming a Cleveland Brown."
On WR Brian Hartline exceeding the Browns' expectations:
"We have been so fortunate with Brian. If you looked up the word 'professional' in the dictionary, Brian's name would probably be right there. He just does everything right. He comes to work every day, keeps his mouth shut, does the right thing, is always in the right spot for the quarterback, never fools the quarterback and I can't say enough good things about Brian Hartline at this point. Obviously, his preseason play showed that."
On how the Browns plan to use Hartline in the offense:
"Part of coaching is putting guys in the right places to make plays. We spent a lot of time in our game planning process putting guys in the right spots. If you looked at our playbook, we probably have more formations than a lot of people just because our guys have such different skill sets. That is a good thing because you want to put them in different places to have success. We are going to put Brian in places where he can succeed."
On how WR Terrelle Pryor is handling the switch from QB to WR and how playing QB previously helped in his transition:
"I think it has helped him. From a coverage standpoint, I think it has helped him. I think he knows what a pre-snap triangle is looking at the linebacker and the safeties and those things. It is not foreign to him when you're talking about Cover 2 and Cover 3. Those aren't foreign to him. He still is a work in progress in the technique side of things. Like I said my last time up here, I am proud of the way Terrelle has handled things. I still am. He just needs to keep improving on those technique issues. It is a shame he has been out, too, and now 100 percent. It is good to finally see him open up a little bit. He has progressed nicely."
On if the Browns have seen enough from Pryor to activate him on game days:
"I am going to let Coach Pettine the actives and inactives. Then we will adjust the game plan from there."
On using Pryor in the Wildcat formation:
"You want to experiment with things in the preseason, especially that fourth preseason game. I had seen him do it before with success, obviously, and wanted to get him back there. It is always good to show and practice those things live. It is different practicing that out on the practice field than actually going into a game against an opponent and showing that facet of your offense. I wanted to show it and see where we were at with Terrelle. I thought he made two good reads."
On three keys to beating the Jets:
"First thing we need to do is own the line of scrimmage. We need to own the line of scrimmage both in the run game and in the pass game. The second thing, as I told our players, it is no one's ball but ours. It is no one's ball but ours. We can't turn the ball over. The third thing is we are going to need to find a way to create explosive pass gains."
On if RB Isaiah Crowell can handle the load of a lead back:
"That is a good question. He hasn't shown me anything that he can't do that. I have been with backs in the past where you really worry about from a fatigue standpoint, from a body composition, the way they are built that would worry about a guy that has to carry the ball 20-22 times a game. Crow is a big guy. He is in great shape. Nothing has shown to me that Crow can't be that workhorse for us."
On Crowell's conditioning, referring to running backs coach Wilbert Montgomery early in training camp:
"I think a lot of it was talking about guys that were hurt at the time and probably hurt with muscles strains and those things. Crow, I don't want to say this because I don't have the stats in front of me, but I think he was at almost every practice, off the top of my head. Nothing has shown that he can't be that guy."
On if Crowell has improved as a receiver:
"He has gotten better. To say that is his No. 1 strong suit is probably not the case, but he has gotten better. He has gotten a lot more patient in the screen game. He did it a little quick early on when we first got here. He has been a little bit more patient in the screen game, which I have been happy about. He has gotten so much better. For me to say that is his No. 1 strong suit, I would probably say that is not the case. He is a really, really hard runner."
On if play calling is different at the NFL and college levels and any uncertainty in his mind going into his first game as an NFL play caller:
"No, no it is not and maybe this is a lack of ego thing. I did it at San Jose State. I didn't care anymore about those games when we were playing Fresno and (Boise State). Believe me, I cared just as much then as I do now. The play clock is still the same in the regular season as it is in the preseason, and we didn't have any delay of games. We had a substitution issue one time, which we were fortunate that (QB) Johnny (Manziel) took care of. To me, no, it is not much of a change."
On signs for confidence in the offense this preseason:
"I have been really pleased with Josh McCown. I am really pleased with Josh. I think Josh has played really well. I really do. I think Josh gives the offense some stability and some calm in that he is going to get us into the right play and protection. Most every look he has seen, he has seen before in his career. That gives us a sense of comfort that Josh is going to go out there and perform well. I told all of our guys this morning, no one needs to go out and play like Superman for us to win this game on Sunday. Just go out and do your job, and we will be just fine."
On RB Duke Johnson Jr.'s workload Sunday, given his time missed:
"It is a fine line. Absolutely, it is a fine line. I think when you are in a situation that Duke is I think you do the things that he done well before. Before he got hurt, like in the spring, I would be really leery of putting a lot of new things on Duke with his lack of playing time with only a week to get ready for a game. As you guys saw in the spring, we did a lot with him that he got exposed to. There is not a lot more you can do with a running back that we haven't done. I am fine with Duke and where he is at right now."
On McCown playing like a young 36-year old:
"The guy can 360-dunk. You never would know that he has a 17-year old daughter. That is the thing with Josh. He is out there. He has juice every day. He and I are very much a like in that way. That is one reason he and I get along so well. It is great to have him out there. It is fantastic."
On how McCown has grown since 2007:
"I think he understands football a lot more in terms of the protection side of thing, the coverage part of it, those types of things. He has seen a lot more. Obviously, I am not a good mathematician. Since 2015, that is eight years of football. Just an overall understanding of the game he has greatly improved."
