Michael Clay

Q. The Steelers seem to make a ton of plays with special teams. They’re always showing the guy with a piece of gum in his mouth. What do they do well? (Jimmy Kempski)

MICHAEL CLAY: Yeah. [Steelers Special Teams Coordinator] Danny [Smith], been in the league for a long time. I think this is his 12th year with Pittsburgh. You see they play hard for him. They rush extremely hard. You’ve got [Steelers S Miles] Killebrew, who’s been doing it for a long time, [Steelers LB Nick] Herbig.

They rush really hard and they play hard for Danny. They do a great job in terms of their scheme and their rushing, and believing they can change the course of a game. This is going to be a very, very good test for us going forward.

I always respected Danny. Danny had [49ers Special Teams Coordinator Richard] Hightower when he was at Washington, and I was under Hightower at San Francisco. So just that kind of connection. Danny is one of those legends in the special teams community that. Gets all these guys to play hard, play relentless, play fast.

They’ve got great players. [Steelers WR] Calvin Austin is a great punt returner. They’ve got [Steelers RB] Cordarrelle [Patterson], Killebrew. The list could go on. They’ve always done a great job. It’s going to test us this week to be prepared and be on our Ps and Qs.

It’s going to be a physical game, and it’s going to be one of those very similar to Baltimore where it’s going to be coming down to maybe special teams having a huge impact on the game.

Q. What was the limit on the yardage kicking into the north in the second half there? How far did you decide that K Jake Elliott could kick it? (Jeff McLane)

MICHAEL CLAY: It’s always an ongoing situation depending on how the flow of the game is. Without going into too much detail and telling what the yardage was, I think it was great communication from Jake to [Special Teams Assistant] Tyler [Brown] to [Head] Coach [Nick] Sirianni on what we thought was best for the team.

At that point in time, our defense– it’s a great defense that [Defensive Coordinator] Vic [Fangio] is running right now. We had made a decision to put the punt team out there knowing we could get these guys pinned down, and [CB] Avonte [Maddox] and [P] Braden [Mann] did a great job of pinning them down at the 3-yard line to give our defense 97 yards to defend, and it worked out for us.

Everything is so organic in time and sense. If your defense is playing well and they’re not really doing well, yeah, give them the long field to protect right there.

Again, everything is under my column for what it is in that situation. We thought the best thing for us as a team was to put our punt team out there. We executed at a high clip on that one. It’s always great to get a win. The NFL is hard to win in, depending on the team.

Q. Did you see the way the Dallas game ended last night? (Merrill Reese)

MICHAEL CLAY: Sure did. That’s the roller coaster of special teams. I’m sure Bonesy [Cowboys Special Teams Coordinator John Fassel], when he saw the punt block, was screaming for joy. Then unfortunately it turned into despair very quickly and vice versa for [Bengals Assistant Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator] Darrin [Simmons] on the other side. Always a coaching moment for us to show the guys later in the week, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing in this situation,’ to mitigate feeling that despair.

Q. Would you tell them to get out of the way? (Merrill Reese)

MICHAEL CLAY: Yeah, in that situation past the line of scrimmage, ‘Alright, poison, poison, poison. We’re already in plus territory. Get out of their way, and let the defense do what they have to do.’

Q. K Jake Elliott missed one right, one left. Is there more concern given that? (Zach Berman)

MICHAEL CLAY: No, the direction of the wind obviously plays a big part in it. The one going to the left on the PAT, the guy was offsides. We’re talking about line of sight. You’re not really paying attention to your kick. We’re not really too worried about that one.

The one on the right is not always just Jake. One, it starts with me as the coordinator to make sure that I reiterate to the guys we have to be perfect in the operation. It goes down to our blocking on the field goal team, to the snap, to the hold.

There’s always something that we could always better ourselves at to [put] ourselves in the best possible situations. I don’t think our operation was as clean as it could have been on that long 52-yarder. I’m sure if you ask Jake, he probably says he didn’t strike it as well as he wanted to.

It’s not always just on [No.] 4. It’s always a team effort. That’s why it’s the greatest team game. We always have to be clean with that starting from the snap to the protection to the hold to make sure we put our team in the best possible situation.

Q. What was wrong with the operation? (Dave Zangaro)

MICHAEL CLAY: It just wasn’t as clean as we want it to be clean. It’s not like the ball was skipping all over the ground or anything like that. But, in our eyes from a specialist standpoint, we hold ourselves to the highest degree in terms of the perfect snap, perfect hold, perfect kick, and it just didn’t happen at that point.

We put our defense in a bad spot right there with a short field. When we go out there, we expect to put three points on the board because we want to help our team win in any way we possibly can.

Q. K Jake Elliott is 0-for-5 from 50-plus now, is there a trend with any of those kicks that you can point to? (E.J. Smith)

MICHAEL CLAY: I think every kick is its own entity. One of the kicks is from 60 yards. Your probability is not going to be great. The other one, [Browns DE] Myles Garrett got on the 57-yarder. Nothing with Jake. We didn’t protect well enough right there. The 51 we missed, obviously. 52 we missed as well, and the other one was a 57-yarder. Everything breathes its own life.

Again, if you ask Jake or myself or any of the specials, any time we go out there, we want to put three points on the board or one point if it’s an extra point. Again, there’s nothing to it in terms of, ‘Are you super worried about it?’ I think the confidence level is still high in Jake if you see his resume.

Last year he was nails, but obviously it’s this year, and like you said, it’s 0-for-5. It is what it is. It’s the reality of the sport. The sky is not falling down in our eyes. We’re going to go out there.

Tomorrow is another day, Wednesday, for Jake to get out there, put his best foot forward, keep the confidence going with him, and make sure– it’s the last month of the season. It’s going to come down to a kick at some point. When you have Jake in there, you actually have a good feeling that you can put it through the uprights.

Q. Are you simulating some of those kicks in practice? (Brooks Kubena)

MICHAEL CLAY: Am I blowing 20 mile per hour winds? If we can go outside, we can. Yeah, we move it from 18 yards to 20 yards to pushing it back to 57 yards to an end-of-game kick, to a five-step kick if it’s a 62-yarder.

We try to put them in the most realistic [situations] we possibly can. That’s why we kick an hour before practice when the offense and defense are going through individual, we go to our fields, and we’re still doing all those kicks.

We’re doing all we can to make it as real life as possible. Again, in those situations, it comes down to just executing at the highest of our ability.

Q. Is there anything as a staff you can do? We’ve seen athletes before kind of get inside their own heads, a little self-doubt creeps in. Is there anything you can do as a staff to maybe help with the mental side of things? (Ed Kracz)

MICHAEL CLAY: I think from the staff, from the mental standpoint, it’s just reiterating how great of a kicker he is. That’s positive reinforcement. I obviously can’t get in the mind of Jake, and Jake is such a great athlete and he’s had ice in his veins at times, but for myself, I can really help him out by positive reinforcing him, [LS] Rick [Lovato], Braden [Mann].

It’s not just those three. I have to make sure our core four is being positively reinforced. When things aren’t up to our standard, I’ve got to make sure we put a pin in that and make sure we can play to the high standard.

Again, for myself, I’m almost like the caddie. Those guys go out there. I’m just trying to help them out in one way. Maybe it’s a phrase I can tell them, ‘Hey, stay true to yourself, finish down the field.’ He could keep that emotion for him and it can help him out.

For myself, it’s being the best caddie I can be in terms of the mental aspect and keep positively reinforcing, not just him, but the entirety of this team.

Q. To follow up on that, you talked about how consistent K Jake Elliott’s process is. Do you have to be disciplined to say, ‘All right, maybe if some things continue to go wrong, you have to step in a little bit more, maybe?’ (John McMullen)

MICHAEL CLAY: I think it almost just comes down to me just being open and honest with him and him being open and honest with me in terms of just, ‘Hey, what can I do to help you out in your process?’ Maybe it’s something where he needs me to tell him when we get past the 50. These are all the examples that I possibly can help him. So, he gets into that right mindset.

He’s been doing this for the past seven years, so I don’t want to ruin or throw his routine off. But I can help if he comes up to me, ‘Hey, can you do this real quick?’ Yeah, I’ll do it at any point. I just want the best for him, the best for the team, more than anything else.

If that’s for him to tell me to get out of his way, by all means to help him out. If it’s for him to tell me that, ‘Hey, just tell me when we get past the 50-yard line so I can really get into it.’ By all means, I’ll do that.

Just the open and honest communication I think myself, Tyler [Brown], we’ve got a great rapport with Jake over these past four years. Anything he needs me to do, I’m more than willing to do for him.

Q. Over the summer, in the first preseason game, he missed the 50-yarder, missed the extra point. How did you feel about him going into the season based on the summer he had? (Zach Berman)

MICHAEL CLAY: Yeah, if you look at the ’23 season, he did the exact same thing. He missed a 50-yarder, and then set the franchise record for field goal percentage. Again, he came back after [former Eagles LB] Pat Johnson made a hell of a play, he came back and hit the game-winner.

It’s one of those things where you have supreme confidence in [Jake] because he’s done it for so long and he’s hit so many big kicks. Again, I always want to make sure our guys are positively reinforced, and they know we have their back regardless of the situation. We’re going to go down swinging for them.

When he comes into tomorrow, he’s going to get his kicks in. We’re going to make sure he gets those kicks in those elements because we’re in the Northeast. There’s going to be a lot of games that will come down to wind, cold, rain, and just going back to our process and not losing the joy of football. That’s the big thing. I told the guys yesterday on Monday, ‘Don’t lose the joy of football. Once you lose the joy of football in this league, it’s going to chew you up and spit you out quick.’

We get to play a child’s game, but it’s often at a higher clip. Don’t lose the joy of this game.

Q. Do you do anything schematically when you have two different punt returners in DB Cooper DeJean and WR Britain Covey? Do you block differently for one versus the other? (Ed Kracz)

MICHAEL CLAY: I try to keep it as simple as possible in terms of the guys interior so they’re not uber thinking about it. There are two different entities in terms of Coop and Covey. Both are very, very tough, but Coop obviously has a bigger body. I would say Covey has a little bit more ‘make you miss’ aspect.

Those two guys, if we can make punt return an 11-pod entity instead of chunk yards right there. But I thought Coop did a really good job in terms of fielding the ball. One went over his head. It’s football. It bounced back to the 10 and hit at the 3.

Again, for us on the interior to get them started and to give them an avenue they can pick. ‘Okay, let me get downhill. Once I split the first wave, I can get outside,’ very similar to what Coop did in the Dallas came and very similar to what Covey did all of last year.

For us on the punt return, we’re going to strain a little bit more to keep it an 11-pod thing instead of 22 different entities there.

Q. With FB Khari Blasingame in the game, most of the attention was the fullback part of it, but he played 15 snaps for you. What does he give your unit there? (Zach Berman)

MICHAEL CLAY: He’s played a lot of meaningful snaps in his career in Tennessee and Chicago. That’s the beauty of special teams. You get a guy that comes in on Monday, and he gets to plug and play and play a core four.

I thought he did a good job. For being thrust in there [his] first week, he did a really good job. Almost got in a tackle on that punt.

Again, it starts from this entire room on Wednesday, me telling him, ‘Hey, you never know when your number is going to be called. Let’s get ready. Let’s get going right here. If your number is called, we expect to play at a high clip and high level.’

You saw [S] Andre Sam get to play four core team for us and he didn’t miss a beat.

That’s the beauty of this special teams world, everyone is involved. You saw Avonte Maddox had one of the biggest plays in the game right there. It doesn’t matter who it is. I’ll take anybody and try to coach them up to the best of my ability to help this team going forward.