News

On the struggle to get 11 men on the field before the half: "Those two situations, the situation where the guys ran on late, although they probably wouldn't have gone for it, what they were trying to do was bleed the clock as much as they could. But, at the same time, it's tough for us to call a timeout because if they do go for it there, we've given them extra time to get 48 yards or whatever. So, it's kind of a close situation so everybody's got to be hanging in there. Do we keep the defense out there or do we send the punt return team out there? And in the long length of (deciding) that, we had a couple of players who were on the punt return team who were there ready to go in. When we didn't send them in initially, they were confused, thinking that the defense was going to stay out there because we do have a defensive-stay call where the defense stays out and we send just the punt returner. Those two guys thought that was the call. It was not and that was why we, when we did send them out, had to find them because they had meandered away to the bench. The next one in that situation, we had a guy that didn't come off. So, we had a guy that did come off that gave us 10 and then we had a guy that didn't come off that gave us 12, so neither one of those are good. Obviously, we've got to be at 11. It's as simple as five go in, you've got five coming out and that's how you do it. Sometimes, situations and things come up when you're looking (and) they're looking and it gets a little bit cloudy when you're looking to make sure they're not just sending the kicker and then keeping the rest of their offense, all those kinds of things. So when you look up, there's like a subway exchange and then you've got to just trust the guys. Then, (WR) Jason Avant is usually on that, who if there's that problem, he handles it, accounting out on the field and the guy that replaced him just wasn't schooled up by me enough to be in a habit of doing that. That's as thorough as you can get on those two situations."

On why the move was made to designate RB Bryce Brown as the kick returner: "I thought he had a couple of chances to do something. He's not familiar with doing it, although he's been practicing it ever since training camp. He had never done it in college and he hadn't done it any other time. I thought he did really good. He's a good running back. We really wanted to shuffle the deck. There's nothing wrong with the dealer, but if the house is getting beat all the time, let's get a new guy in there and see if there's a different chemistry, a little different reaction and the house can start winning again."

On whether he will return to CB Brandon Boykin as the kick returner with Brown's role potentially increased on offense this week: "We're looking at a couple of guys in there and, still, Brown is getting work in there. You'll have to ask Coach (Reid) about that. He'll have to make those personnel calls. But, pretty much, you're on it. We've got a couple of guys we're looking at, including Boykin to maybe see what we can do in there. But, certainly Boykin, I think he's doing all he can do. We've got to block for him better, as I've said before. But there's a couple of guys. (WR) Damaris (Johnson) can return, (WR Mardy) Gilyard can return and then, of course, we've got Bryce. Coach will see where he's at, but I think he's pretty much on it for the most part."

On whether, with two running backs potentially active, they would use a back to return kickoffs: "We generally get a little more specialized in some of that stuff and if a guy's toting the mail every play, generally we don't use him on special teams. You'll have to ask Coach (Reid). He makes those decisions."