Kevin Patullo

Q. With WR John Metchie, it looks like you have a pretty deep wide receiver room. What do you think he can add? (John McMullen)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, I think anytime you can add a player like him to the room, it creates more competition. It’s great for the rest of the team. [Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman] does a really good job of just adding good players and adding depth, giving us more options to work with throughout the season. You’re going to need as many bodies as you can, and I think he does a really good job of bringing guys in that can add to the team. We’re excited to have him.

Q. How familiar are you with him, and what stands out most about WR John Metchie? (Dave Zangaro)

Kevin Patullo: So, I remember watching him coming out of college, doing a lot of work on him then. Just since he’s been in the league, his ability to play in different positions. He can move around. He’s done a good job. He’s had some injuries early on but worked through those and he’s looked pretty good so far this past year. Excited to see what he can do today, especially.

Q. This is the general timeframe that you brought in WR Jahan Dotson last year. From that experience, can that help you develop him [WR John Metchie] this year? (Zach Berman)

Kevin Patullo: I think when you bring a guy in later in camp, they have to be caught up to speed as fast as they can. But still having a couple weeks left, I think the timing’s pretty good. [Wide Receivers Coach] Aaron Morehead does a really good job. He’s been with us the whole time. He knows the system, knows where we’re going with things, and then he’ll be familiar with [WR] DeVonta [Smith] and some of the other guys to lean on. So, I think from the standpoint of bringing a guy in, we’re in a pretty good spot where he can still pick it up and feel confident in what he can do.

Q. What do you think about his WR John Metchie’s run blocking? (Ed Kracz)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, so when we talk about run blocking, the best thing that a guy can do is just give effort, and so he’s going to be a maximum effort guy. We know that coming in. Then, what we got to do as coaches put them in a spot to not be in a bad position.

As far as schematically with a certain body type, you want to always make sure you have certain guys in certain spots. That’s up to us as coaches. But it’s got to be effort and if the guy’s going to give a good effort, we can get what we want out of them.

Q. One thing that Head Coach Nick Sirianni talked about post joint practices was the concern with the offensive negative plays. What do you think led to that? (Jeff McLane)

Kevin Patullo: I think really when you do the joint practices, it’s funny because [Browns Defensive Coordinator Jim] Schwartz and I have talked before and after each practice, and we don’t really know what he has in, and he doesn’t know what we have in. We got him on a couple things, then he got us on a couple things, and it was good to do that to just really kind of not know schematically what they were going to do and what they were working on until after.

Then we had the opportunity to talk about it. I think when you look at some of the negative plays like that, a lot of it has to do with not knowing what you’re getting until you get it. The same thing goes back and forth.

I know in practice we hit a couple things on him that he missed and maybe wasn’t expecting, but at least it was good for us to go through and work through the process, and then you get good tape. If there’s something that he did to us that we’re like, oh wow, that was new, we haven’t seen that yet in camp, now we can talk about it, work through it, detail it out and then go walk through it afterwards. So, it is good that those situations come up.

Q. When you bring in the new guy you’ve had: WR Johnny Wilson, WR Ainias Smith, WR Darius Cooper, all working here since the spring, is there a message to those guys all of a sudden, maybe a roster spot looks less attainable? What do you have to say to them to kind of not let them get affected by it? (Reuben Frank)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, I mean that’s part of the business. But I think really when a guy comes in late like he did, we have this situation where those other guys need to understand, I still have another week to prove myself. I got to continue to work through this and do the best that I can.

From there, the decision’s up to Howie and Nick and everybody upstairs, but I think ultimately the guys understand it’s all a competitive thing and when you look at a backend roster guy, you’re not only competing for our roster, but you’re always competing for other rosters. I think it’s important that most guys start to understand that, and a lot of those guys are in year two and year three, so I think they pretty much understand where they’re at with that.

Q. Third tight end depth. What does it say that you guys were able to unload a guy, and what does it say about the remaining guys and TE EJ Jenkins? (Jeff McLane)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, I think this year especially, we’ve had a lot of depth in that room, that room and the receiver room obviously, but in the tight end room there’s different body styles and types in there. When you look at that room, they’ve done a good job. [Tight Ends Coach] Jason Michael’s a good tight end coach. I’ve known him for a while, worked with him. He does a really good job of developing guys and getting them up to speed with our offense.

I think we have a bunch of different guys in that room that can fill different voids and some of those guys are good special teams’ players. When you look at the versatility of what we had in that room, it allows us to do kind what we did with that move. But not only that, we feel very confident and comfortable with the guys that are still here.

Q. Last year when you guys brought in WR Jahan Dotson, he was saying it kind of took him a little while to get used to QB Jalen Hurts and obviously seeing that, are there things you can kind take away from that to kind of help John match adjustment to the team? (Martin Frank)

Kevin Patullo: I think the biggest thing is he has some relationships with guys on our team already. Yesterday at walkthrough with him, he started to know that hey, this is how the offense is compared to what you were. He can start to understand how the working order is and the verbiage and things like that going forward. He’ll have some of the guys to lean on a little bit differently, like [WR] DeVonta Smith and say hey, what do I really need to know and how do things work? I think there’s a little bit of a difference from that standpoint, but I do think there’s an accelerated ramp up version that you have to do for those guys just to get them to practice today.

For example, we have to do some things to see what we have. I think from him getting comfortable with the offense will take some time, but at least he’s got some guys that he can lean on to get him through those little things that have happened in the last four years that he may not know about, but we can help him with.

Q. With RB Will Shipley, he seems to have really developed running aspect, receiving aspect. Where is he in pass protection as far as being able to be that third down guy? (John McMullen)

Kevin Patullo: He’s done a pretty good job. Pass protection is one of those unique things at the running back position where you got to get reps at it. So going against the Browns the other day was really good for him to see different blitz packages besides, [Defensive Coordinator] Vic’s [Fangio], so he’s seeing new things and getting exposed to that. That’s really what it comes down to is just reps, you just got to see it full speed.

We can walk through it, which we do, but the full speed reps of seeing it, knowing how to do it and what it feels like because working with the O-line, right, you’re working with those guys hand in hand on everything. So, communication and fitting the blocks are super important so the more he does it, the more comfortable he’ll be with it.

Q. In past years you had a better sense of those sixth and seventh O-Line spots now, where’s that coming along and how are you trying to figure those spots out?  (Zach Berman)

Kevin Patullo: Yeah, I think, I know we talked about this last week a little bit like [OL Coach Jeff Stoutland] Stout’s such a good O-line coach, there’s no doubt he’s going to get somebody ready to go and I think it’ll work itself out and it’ll continue to sort itself through this week and going forward. So, I think we’re all confident in what we’ll do going forward. We’ll have that guy.

Q. How do you evaluate the quarterback play from Saturday’s game? (Ed Kracz)

Kevin Patullo: When you look at the quarterback play, we had a couple negative plays that got us behind the sticks a little bit. When that starts to happen, you’re trying to play back on schedule, so it’s difficult. Unfortunately, as far as reps and practice, we try to get as many as we can, but this past week was a heavy starters practice right against the Browns, so they had very few exposure reps against those guys.

In the game it was a little bit different for them than first game where they were more of a rhythm, and were taking reps leading into that first game against the Bengals. It was a little different for them. Hopefully this week they can get a little more rhythm and going, but it’s hard when you have those negative plays it kind of can set you back a little bit and put you in a bad spot.

Q. WR AJ Brown’s return from the hamstring. When would you ideally want him back? (Jeff McLane)

Kevin Patullo: I mean he’s doing a lot of stuff mentally to kind stay obviously sharp and make sure he’s good with his game and things like that. Really that’s up to him and the trainers, whenever they’re ready to cut them loose, I think they’ll cut them loose. I know he’s staying active within us, staying his mind in the playbook and everything with what we’re doing. I think whenever they feel like he’s ready to go, we’ll get them back.

Q. T/G Darrian Kinnard has gotten some work at left guard. What stood out to you about the summer he’s had? (Andrew DiCecco)

Kevin Patullo: He’s done a good job, so he’s had to bounce around last year. He is pretty much playing tackle now he’s playing guard, and you want guys that are versatile and with him being versatile, I think that just adds value. Continuing to kind of move him around to see what else he can do is just going to add value.

Q. Have you already begun game planning for week one? (Bo Wulf)

Kevin Patullo: We’ve kind of done a little bit. It’s difficult how these weeks work for us are kind of fast paced. The other day we were literally working on two practices, a Jets preseason plan for the young guys and then what we’re doing the next week in between that kind of dead period before the Cowboys.

There are three and four things happening that day off that we had. There was a lot going on just for this week, kind of a final install stuff rep some things in practice today and tomorrow that we want to make sure we get full speed before we get into that game week.

There’s a lot going all at once and we’re trying to sort through it, but I think once we get through this week it calms down. We kind of shift our focus, which will be nice and get ready for the game.

Q. In QB Tanner McKee’s case, what about his development that makes you comfortable and confident? (Zach Berman)

Kevin Patullo: He’s gotten so many good reps really, and even this past week against the Browns, it was so good to see him against different guys and different rush patterns and protection things he had to solve. I think that’s been really valuable for him. When you look at his whole body of work, getting the play last year in a full game was awesome. So that was the biggest exposure he could get to prepare and go against the Giants. That really helped him. Since then, he’s just kind of continued to grow. I think him sitting for a year or so really helped his development as well, just kind of understand the pace and the speed of the game and the knowledge and since then he keeps climbing, which is great.