Browns 23, Jaguars 13
Q. Thoughts on the game?
URBAN MEYER: Yeah, I'll just keep -- everybody is reminding me it's a 20-game season, so now what is it, a 19-season game left. Yeah, disappointed with the offense, 85 yards first half, and it was a classic how-not-to-play-field-position. Guys gave great effort on the kickoff return and knock it out 60 yards and it goes back to the 10-yard line, just classic how not -- so a teachable moment, and that was one of our good players. I think it was Wingard.
And then the 4th and 1, real disappointing. I thought our defense hung in there. We gave up a lot of yards passing, but did good against the run. Trevor I believe was 6 of 9, but we gave up two sacks, I believe, with the No. 1 offense, which we shouldn't do. But I'll get more for you, if he's holding the ball a little bit long. I kind of felt he did on one of them. But we'll have more for you after we watch.
But just disappointed offensively. I don't like slow offenses, and I told those -- I thought the third quarter was better with just tempo, getting up the line of scrimmage, snap the ball. I don't want to be one of those slow, wallowing offenses, and we'll go and get that fixed.
Q. Do you think the tempo was on Trevor?
URBAN MEYER: No, it was on us. We've just got to get it and go, go, go, and emphasize that. No, not at all.
Q. Was he trusting what he saw or was he holding the ball --
URBAN MEYER: I have not really had a chance to chat with him yet. I will. I'll certainly answer that question when I talk to him. I asked the same thing to Bev -- not Bev, but Schottie, I said, how did he play. He said, he did pretty good. I thought the ball to his left right in front of us, I think it was 3rd down, he really anticipated a nice out-cut, scrambled and delivered a nice one down to Marvin Jones, but I do believe he held the ball a little bit, and I've got to find out why. We've got to find out why.
Q. Is that kind of what you expect out of a rookie, the first time, to have some jitters?
URBAN MEYER: He's played in environments tougher than that one now, but it is an NFL team, and there's good players all over the field. I'm anxious to talk to him. I've not spent -- we were coaching the game, so I'm going to spend a lot -- what did he think. He certainly wasn't awestruck. We've just got to execute better. We've got to protect him better and got to get all our wide outs healthy and just play healthy.
Q. How did you think Cam Robinson and Jawaan Taylor played for you tonight?
URBAN MEYER: I asked them, and once again, I just don't know because I don't want to say something I haven't really studied yet.
Q. Is it even more concerning that you had most of your starters and they had most of their backups, third-teamers in there?
URBAN MEYER: Concerning, yeah, everything is concerning. That's my job to be concerned. Yeah.
Q. With the pressure CJ had Thursday, pretty good one from what I saw then made a couple plays, are you much more encouraged --
URBAN MEYER: CJ Beathard?
Q. Henderson.
URBAN MEYER: Yeah, I saw him make a couple plays out there tonight. I just like the fact he's getting back into game shape. I'm not sure how many plays he had, but that COVID knocked the teeth out of him, and then he came back and started practicing good. So we've just got to get him revved up to game speed and game shape. We'll get Taven Bryan back tomorrow, we get Phillip Dorsett back tomorrow, which is going to be important. DJ Chark is still a little ways away. We need some juice on offense right now.
Q. The Schobert trade, are you guys paying a portion of his salary?
URBAN MEYER: I believe we are. I don't -- that's a Trent -- yeah, I just don't want to say something that's not true.
Q. Can you take us through why he wasn't a good fit for this defense?
URBAN MEYER: I wouldn't say he was a good fit. We felt good about the depth we have right now at the linebacker position, and that was one of those things I just listened and learned a lot about the whole process with that. I get it. You've got special teams value, too, when you start taking Quarterman and Quincy Wilson and Dakota and there's another one, Chapelle. So we have four young cats that have some really special teams value to us right now. And Damien we felt is really coming on.
Q. How did you feel out there your first NFL game coaching and first game in general in a couple years?
URBAN MEYER: It felt great. I looked up and saw 85 yards at halftime. (Laughter.)
Q. What did you feel were positives for your defense?
URBAN MEYER: Defense?
Q. It seemed like the run defense --
URBAN MEYER: Yeah, I thought good energy. I thought we're going to -- we are -- the Baltimore and it's the Jaguars style. Joe Cullen I thought the defensive line, we made some investment in the defensive line. I never felt like we lost the line of scrimmage on the defense.
Obviously we've just got to make a couple plays with the ball in the air. The two screen plays came, it was like we never saw a screen before, and they came out, Cleveland executed it well and we just didn't play well on the screens.
Q. Did you find it at all disheartening even though a lot of the players that were in the game at the time may not even be on your roster that gave up a 20-play 89-yard drive in the fourth quarter that ate up 10 minutes of the clock?
URBAN MEYER: Am I disheartened?
Q. Yeah, just when you see something like that.
URBAN MEYER: Yeah, of course, yeah. Like you said, I'm not sure -- I'll visit with our defensive staff who's on the field, why are they on the field. Coach Strong and I had a little chat, like it's -- the newness to me is the length of the season. I keep hearing that over and over again, and I just -- I'm learning. I would have kept them in the whole game. But that probably is not very intelligent.
Q. How did you feel about the offensive line?
URBAN MEYER: The ones or overall? The ones, I think we had two sacks with the ones, but I'm not sure it was a pressure. I'm sorry, I'll let you know more this week.
Q. You have your first cut on Tuesday. Do you walk out of here tonight knowing what you're going to do?
URBAN MEYER: No. No. That's going to be tomorrow. I think we go down to 85 and then just keep cutting each week.
Q. Obviously you were down DJ Chark still; what did you see from the wide receivers that were out there?
URBAN MEYER: Just okay. I thought Laviska and Marvin competed really well. I thought the twos and threes went in there and really competed. I love Hammond. I love the -- Tavon Austin shows up in five days and he's all over the field. I like those guys. They just practice like that. Also you've got Chark and Phillip Dorsett are guys we're counting on, and then Agnew, I pulled him. I thought he had a couple nice plays but I pulled him out because he's a returner. We invested quite a bit into that, so he's going to be with kid gloves until we get to game 1, he's so valuable. I'm not panicky. I saw the same thing you did; let's move the ball up the field, and we didn't do it.
Q. Lopsided game late, a lot of coaches would have been running the ball to get out of there. You're calling time-out. Does that say a little bit about what you're doing trying to get a look on all these guys even though --
URBAN MEYER: Yeah, I just think it's fair. We're going to -- the livelihood of some players are going to be on our hands right now, and so I just kept staring at it and I said I want to see these guys play. Half those receivers will be gone, and how do you do that without letting them play. I'm sure Cleveland, they've probably got the same dilemma. That's the way I look at it. As I've been saying all along, I'm trying to take as much subjectivity out of this as I can, and how do you do you that, watch the film and chart it.
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