Q. What's it like having C.J. back out there? How has he looked so far?
BOBBY SLOWIK: He has looked the same way he has always looked. There's really been no difference in that regard. He's doing a great job just progressing through the stages he's at. He's on track, and we'll see where he's at on Sunday.
He's the same as he always has been in practice.
Q. When he eventually got back, is it business as usual when he gets back in there, or is there a ramp-up, a build-up that needs to happen from an in-game standpoint? You practice him, but the game is different than practice.
BOBBY SLOWIK: I think you really aren't going to be able to know that until the game. I think there's some guys -- I've been around guys that can maybe be out for a couple of weeks that come back in, and it's like they never left.
There's a lot of other guys that are out a couple of weeks, and when they come back in, some rust needs to get knocked off. I think that's something that you just have to see and react to as it goes, but at the end of the day you're in playoff mode here, so we're doing everything we can to make sure we can operate at the best that our offense can with our best guys out there.
Q. (Indiscernible) looking at as soon as he has his first play to see if there's any residual effects that y'all haven't seen?
BOBBY SLOWIK: I always start with the feet. My first thing is always -- I think feet are a great indication of a quarterback of how comfortable and confident he is. That's usually my starting point.
Then how fast the ball is just coming out of his hands, which part of that's going to be me, what play I called and his number one open and stuff like that. How fast he can snap through progressions usually is also tied to the feet.
Just all that stuff I think you can really centralize for a quarterback down low.
Q. How do you feel like you have missed him most these past two weeks?
BOBBY SLOWIK: I think in a lot of areas. I think we've talked through really all season. I think we have a lot of special guys, what I believe are special guys on our team and on our offense.
C.J. is one of them. He's got an energy about him. He's got an edge to him. He's a great competitor. He carries himself the right way, approaches every day, every practice, every game the right way.
There's stuff that is intangible that is not even football-related that I think a lot of guys really feed off of, who he is as a person.
Then when he's in the huddle just like the command he has, the confidence he has, the ability to go execute what we're trying to execute when we're out there. All that I think everybody can see and everybody knows.
But it's really the intangibles that I think makes C.J. so valuable to us and such a special kid.
Q. Talk to us about the Browns' defense that caused you to be so ineffective in the first half?
BOBBY SLOWIK: I mean, they're number one in the NFL. They're pretty good. It's hard when you're playing any defense, but in particular a really good defense when you're playing your enemy and you're also playing yourself. That old enemy that we've been fighting all year reared its head a lot where we couldn't get out of our own way often, and that's something we have to find a way.
Usually through the course of the year you find out exactly what it is you got to hone in on to fix to go where you want to go at the end of the season. We've honed in on ours for a while, which is basically playing clean football. We still haven't quite ironed that one out. We have to make sure it gets ironed out in these last two games.
Q. You spent a lot of time with Kyle Shanahan. What are some of the things that you learned from him in terms of being able to scheme things up, making life easier on your quarterbacks?
BOBBY SLOWIK: A lot of it has to do with how can you -- I think there's a lot of guys on the offensive side of the ball in the NFL that are really good game planners. The guy we played last week is one of them. Kevin Stefanski I think is an excellent game planner.
What we really learned or what I learned from Kyle in particular is how do you blend how you want to game plan and scheme stuff and get guys open with making things easy in the moment. Like how can I make it easy for our receiver and easy for our quarterback to understand the intent of what we're trying to get done, when we're trying to get it done so that when it shows itself, we don't miss it, we know exactly where we're throwing the ball and we're not getting a long incompletion.
It's the same in the run game. Like the backs understand exactly what it is we're trying to attack when we get a certain front with a certain run call, and we get there when we get a premier look and take advantage of it.
That really -- Kyle is exceptional at that, at being able to come up with very creative schemes and present it to the players in a way where it's very simple, and everyone can kind of digest what it is we're trying to get done when he calls it. That's definitely something I took from him that I'm trying to relay to our guys as we go through it.
Q. How much do you think (off microphone) Dameon take off from that kickoff return? Can you extrapolate it out if he is in space (off microphone)?
BOBBY SLOWIK: Absolutely. That was exciting. That was a really cool moment. That was exciting for Dameon. It was fun to see the sidelines, how everybody reacted. It was fun to see him, how he reacted.
I think they gave everybody juice in that game. That was really, really cool to see for an awesome kid.
Then, I think actually later on, I want to say the next series or maybe the series after that, we basically did exactly that. We tried to get him the ball on the edge in a pin-and-pull type scheme to let him go be a ballplayer.
That's definitely something that Dameon is good at. That's something that's a strength that we try to take advantage of when we can.
Q. Do you think having him in that position and seeing that can do something (off microphone) maybe not this week, but kind of as he continues to learn?
BOBBY SLOWIK: You still talking about D.P.?
Q. Yes.
BOBBY SLOWIK: For sure. That's something that we saw even on tape last year. We know what Dameon is capable of doing. We know how good of a runner he can be. We know that he runs -- particularly post-contact, he has more effort and strain in the run game post-contact than almost anyone else in the NFL.
He does not want to go to the ground. Now, getting to where exactly we got to get to on some of the schemes I think we're still kind of working through some of that stuff, and he is working through some of it, and it's attacking it, and he's working on it.
Then there are some other schemes we can do where we can definitely get him in there, have him catch the ball and just go run like he is doing on a kick return a little bit like I just talked about on the previous question.
Yeah, we're well aware. That's not going to stop. I think you would probably see a lot more D.P. right now if Motor wasn't playing at what I believe is just an exceptional level.
Q. Do you think that you all have an advantage against the Titans being that he didn't play against them last time, with C.J. back?
BOBBY SLOWIK: The way I approach games, I don't really ever think we have an advantage. That's just the way -- I don't ever like relaxing. I don't ever like feeling like we're at a disadvantage. I like keeping the edge. I like that for our whole offense.
I think that's the way our offense always approaches it. The few times this year I feel like we have lost our edge a little bit I think it's shown on game day.
Really for us it's every game is a different game. Even games where you play someone two weeks removed like we got different players, they got different players, I'll call different plays, they'll call different plays. It's always its own game that we've got to be ready to go out, execute, play clean football and make some big plays and hopefully put up some points.
Q. When you reassess and go through the film, whatever it is, when you, per se, make a call that isn't favorable or isn't a great call for the offense that they aren't able to execute, what's the learning process for you in terms of self-correction?
BOBBY SLOWIK: I think there's a lot in that there's play calls that have been awesome play calls this year or what probably the public would deem as an awesome play call because it went for a touchdown that I actually think was a really bad play call, and players go and make plays, and there's times where you have a play call that you think is as good as it gets, and someone is wide open, and we don't go execute it, and it winds up in a 10-yard sack.
There's so much just in between there that it's endless as a coordinator and as a play caller where you are kind of evaluating yourself. Your staff is evaluating you. Your head coach is evaluating you, and you are always having the conversation of kind of what you are thinking, what the opponent is thinking, and how you can help put your players in a better position.
But the reality is players over plays. At the end of the day, just as much as calling plays is my job, my job is also to make sure that we go out and we play football the right way and we execute the right way so that my play calls mean far less than us just going out and doing what we're supposed to do and what we're capable of doing.
Q. When you guys played the Jacksonville Jaguars earlier this year (indiscernible) the Titans, you just played them, what's it like as a coordinator game planning when they'll probably be similar to the same teams you saw before?
BOBBY SLOWIK: It is more unique for certain. When you only have one other game, one extra game of film to watch in between, there's times where you go through a season, and people can evolve. It might not be a lot. It could just be a little. But I would even say that for our offense from the first time we played Jacksonville to the second time we played them and their defense.
There's just a few more wrinkles in there, strengths that you take advantage of more on both sides where when you are only two weeks removed, there's not as much of that.
Really in games that are tight turnarounds like this -- I feel like I've done this now two, three years in a row when we've played Arizona and Seattle in this exact same situation -- what winds up happening I feel like is a lot of times the players wind up showing up when you want to win. Like this one is more of a players' game, guys going out and making plays and doing what they're capable of.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports