In his post-game press conference, Cleveland Browns head coach Pat Shurmur spent a good deal of his time answering questions about some of the team's bubble players. I have selected a few of his quotes, which are highlighted after the jump. [Pat Shurmur's full post-game press conference transcript]
On whether James Dockery’s penalties will affect his roster spot: “He challenges every play, and I think the penalties show up that way. I don’t know if it affects his roster status, but I like the way he plays. And I like the way he challenges. At times, when you are challenging receivers, those kinds of things happen. You have to eliminate penalties, of course, but he has an aggressive style, which we will want in the secondary. We’ll look at the film and we’ll see what it is, but his style of play is something that I’m fond of.”
On the play of Armond Smith: “He had a little zip, and he has some speed. He made some plays tonight. He took advantage of his opportunity. He’s had a little bit of roller coaster ride through the preseason, and then he showed up and did a nice job tonight.”
On the play of Jason Pinkston: “I think, generally speaking, he was pretty solid in the game. I don’t think any of the penetration we had early on was because of him. And again, I will go back and say this guy has done a very fine job of coming in here as a rookie. I’m hopeful that will continue and I’m hopeful we got ourselves a good player.”
On the play of Auston English: “He is one of those tough guys – if you didn’t really walk up to him and talk to him, you wouldn’t even know he is in the room. He is one of those quiet soldier type guys. Out in the game, he makes plays and he is a steady, consistent performer. We have to watch the tape, and as we put this thing together, he will be one of the guys we consider.”
On the thought behind playing the rookie starters tonight: “Well, those are obviously guys who need playing time. Those are the guys that even though they are slated to potentially line up as starters on day one, they need a little bit more seasoning. So that’s why we played them. And I’m glad they got an opportunity to get out there and bang around, in really, what was a hot game. This was probably climate-wise, the hottest game we played. And I kind of welcomed it. I think for the most part, our guys held up that way pretty well. I don’t know the total yet, but when you’re playing in hot games, you start to see a bunch of IVs and stuff. I didn’t see that.”
On his accomplishments during the final preseason game: “For the final preseason game, you want to try and walk away without anything major injury-wise, and I think we accomplished that, based on what I’ve heard so far. And then you want the guys that you have slated as primary back-up, role player type guys to play well and show up. And you obviously want to try and win the game. I think there were some things out there today that helped us. Good and bad, we learned a lot about our team, especially the middle to bottom half of our team. That will help us as we make our decisions here in the next few hours in terms of putting our first roster together.”