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Browns v. Titans: Whisenhunt Interview


As I transcribed from yesterday's SiriusXM broadcast of Movin' the Chains.

PK is Pat Kirwan. JM is Jim Miller. And KW is of course Coach Whisenhunt.


PK: How was practice this week? I know you're battling this 3 game losing streak and you're learning a lot about your team. What was the week of practice like. That usually is the first indicator for me anyway.

KW: It was a good week. It was one of our better weeks. I think they worked hard and ya know we've gotta clean up a number of things that we're doing to ourselves and mistakes that we're making and stay focused on that. You never know for sure how that's gonna translate but ya know it's gonna happen for us eventually if we can put together weeks of practice like we did this week.

JM: In terms of your quarterback...I assume continues to get healthier after the wrist injury...and ya know it seems like he's put a lot of ya know onus on himself that he's gotta make some better throws in key situations, Coach.

KW: Yeah he's practiced all week...had a good week of practice...and hopefully when he gets his opportunities tomorrow he'll throw the ball well. I mean we...the quarterback always gets a lot of the blame and probably a lot of the credit so in this case we haven't been as efficient offensively as we wanted to and we've turned the ball over and have been awful on third down so those are areas that we must improve on and obviously the quarterback can help us do that.

PK: Kenny, you probably don't have time to do this, but I'd be interested. I went back and took a peak at the first weeks game. You go out and you beat Kansas City in Kansas City 26-10. What was different about that team...your team then...as compared to the last couple weeks. Was it the offense not scoring? Was it the defense giving up points? Where do you see this thing change? 'Cause ya know when it's on film it's true...you did...you went out there and you played a hell of a football game.

KW: Ya know I think when you haven't been together very long you're always gonna have to go through some struggles and we've done that the last 3 weeks. The one thing that we feel strongly about is that we know that if we do it right we can have success and that was evident by what we did to Kansas City. I think what happened to us is we didn't handle the win against Kansas City very well and we came out the next week against Dallas...and Dallas is a good football team...but we went into Cincinnati and we went into Indianapolis...ya know the NFL didn't do us any real favors in this schedule thing either it being our first time together and having 3 of the first 4 on the road against playoff teams and to their credit both Cincinnati and Indy made plays on us early. Indy got an onside kick on us last week and then Cincinnati had the throw back to the quarterback where ya know we had an opportunity to get the ball or knock the quarterback down and we didn't do that and those were both plays were both plays that just kind of...that hurt us and we didn't respond well from that standpoint so ya know we're trying to learn from those things and I think it really comes down to us being able to make some plays and we've had some chances to do that and we haven't where as the other team has done that we haven't done that and a lot of it is...some of it's technique...like defense fitting gaps their correct way...some of it's offense where we're not getting to the right route depths...we're not runnning the routes the correct way and in fact last week we had a couple of drops....we had Justin Hunter a very promising young receiver for us went down there inside the twenty and the ball hits him right in the hands and pops up in the air and it's a turnover so those are the kind of things that we've gotta find a way to overcome...turnovers being the biggest thing because...and you mentioned Kansas City...we didn't have any in Kansas City so those are things that we really worked on this week...starting a little bit faster, working to eliminate the turnovers and definitely getting better on third down.

JM: Coach you mentioned playmakers and you've been pretty vocal about a young playmaker and we believe he's gonna be a playmaker, Bishop Sankey, the young running back...I guess...when do you, when do you know it's the right time for a young running back...when you say...ya know put him on the field and let him go with what he could do 'cause he is certainly a talented, talented young man.

KW: What he did more and more times as the weeks progressed as he gets more and more accustomed to the offense...he just...it's hard to throw him back out there because protection is such an important part of playing that position and a ya know Bishop has a lot to learn from that standpoint. What you do in the NFL and what he did in college weren't very similar and there's a lot of things from a footwork perspective where one of the things that I talked about earlier was about turnovers and we had had a couple of things in practice where his course hasn't been correct or his footwork hasn't been correct where we had exchange problems...now that's gotten a lot better the last few weeks which you expect it to do over time but he'll continue to get more and more time as we continue...he continues to show what type of player he can become.

PK: Kenny I wanted to ask you about one of your guys...when I was at camp I said this is the perfect fit and I was just wondering about Dexter McCluster...he doesn't really get the ball a lot and I don't know if he's nursing injury or what's going on but I though that guy had a dynamic skill set that was gonna help you move the chains and do other things...give a little update on what's going on with Dex.

KW: Well to be honest with you Pat we had some things for him in the Kansas City game which were successful but then we got down in games and when you get down in games it really...ya know you're trying to catch up...it limits what you can do with Dexter so ya know hopefully we'll be able to get him the ball a little bit more tomorrow if we stay in the normal flow of the game. We've had things for him every week and we just haven't...we had something in for him last week and we just didn't connect on it. Ya know he's a good football player and I think one of the things where we expected to see more out of him was in returns and we just...ya know we haven't gotten the other team off the field or put them in position to where they punted it to us in areas where we could return it so ya know that's another area where we expected big things from Dexter that we haven't seen yet either so hopefully over the next few weeks we're gonna get a chance to do that.

JM: Well Coach let's turn our attention to the Cleveland Browns they are 1-2, they got the benefit of the bye last week before they go on the road to head into Nashville to take on your football team...a young quarterback in Brian Hoyer looks to be making the most of his opportunities and just your thoughts on the offensive group the Cleveland Browns will present your team tomorrow.

KW: Well they run the ball well...they got a good offensive line...they make a commitment to the running game...they throw play action and they take some shots down the field off that which they've been vey good at. Brian Hoyer's doing a nice job for them. We had him in Arizona my last year there, the last couple of weeks, and I was very impressed with him so I'm not surprised if he's running that offense very well and that's gonna present a challenge for us tomorrow. I think they're very underrated as an offense because of the things that they've been able to do...so ya know we obviously worked hard to prepare for'em and hopefully we'll be able to match up well tomorrow.

So that's it. A couple of thoughts...The coach really seemed to have a hard time pinning down any reason for the teams' struggles the past three weeks compared to week 1 which is understandable. I think he makes a good point about the schedule. I wouldn't be surprised if those 3 offenses they've faced recently were able to dominate the Browns as well.

He seems to be at his wits end with Justin Hunter as that is the second time I've heard him call Hunter out recently. He also doesn't seem to be jumping on the Bishop Sankey bandwagon with that answer about him. And Dexter McCluster, who has 1 TD in 4+ seasons, is probably not someone who will ever be a major part of the offensive game plan.

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