BROWNS QUARTERBACK BRIAN HOYER
(on the bye week)
It was good. Obviously, you don't want to have your bye week in week four. You don't really, at least I didn't myself, need the recovery. It's good to take a few days off and kind of evaluate where you're at and what you need to improve on. Getting Ben (Tate) and Jordan (Cameron) back, we've had two great days with them out there, so it's a good thing to see those guys back.
(on handling training camp and transitioning into the regular season)
I just focused on myself and what I needed to get done. Obviously, coming off a major knee surgery, that took up a lot of my time, whether it was rehab or doing extra work, to make sure I was ready in that sense. Football-wise, just really trying to learn the system and master the system. I didn't really pay much attention to what was going on in the outside world. I just focused on what I needed to do and what my coaches were telling me. Life was actually pretty simple.
(on the Browns struggling in road games)
It's hard enough to win as it is in the NFL, then you go on the road and you have a lot of factors against you. I think you have to go in and be mentally prepared to handle some tough situations, whether it's crowd noise or whatever that might be. I think teams generally come out more excited to play at home, and you've got to be able to deal with that and take the punches and just kind of hang in there and realize it's a 60-minute game and weather the storm a little bit and handle those ups and downs.
(on how difficult it is to stop making mistakes as a team)
I think we're kind of in the same boat. I think our guys would say the same thing. You look at our games, and we've put it on ourselves. It wasn't that we got beat, it was things that we could have done differently. Our big things or little things, and I think generally if you go around the league, I'm sure most teams would say that. It's paying attention to detail, it's having a sense of urgency, and I think those two things, along with being prepared, if you do those three things, you give yourself an advantage and an opportunity to win a game.
(on the Tennessee Titan defensive player he is keeping an eye out for)
I'll try not to keep an eye on him because he's on the defensive line, but I know Jurrell Casey has really stood out to us as a guy who, high motor, making a lot of plays. Hopefully I'm keeping my eyes down the field at (Michael) Griffin and (Bernard) Pollard and (Jason) McCourty and those guys, but he's someone who we've really heard a lot of respect for going into this week, because you can tell he's a high motor guy and plays fast and plays hard.
(on Browns wide receivers Miles Austin and Andrew Hawkins)
Those guys have been great. To have two, our wide receiver room has almost done a complete 180. Josh (Gordon), when he gets back, and Travis (Benjamin) being the only guys that are left over. To have two veteran guys like that come in who are the ultimate pros, they work really hard. They might not be the most skilled or the biggest-named guys, but they go out there and work their butts off. I have a ton of trust in them because I know they're going to do exactly what we ask them to do and do it 100 percent. They've done a great job. Like I mentioned, you throw in Travis Benjamin and Taylor Gabriel, those guys are explosive threats, and we try to take advantage of their skill sets.
(on missing wide receiver Josh Gordon)
We're focused on the guys that are eligible to play right now. Obviously, Josh (Gordon) will be back at some point. That'll be great for our offense, because he is important. Like I said, I've developed a lot of trust between all four of those guys, especially (Andrew) Hawkins and (Miles) Austin.
(on running back Ben Tate being able to play Sunday)
That'll be huge for us. He was a guy that was heavily sought after by us in the offseason, and we were able to get him. He knows the scheme. It's very similar to what he ran in Houston. He's a veteran guy. He knows exactly what needs to be done. You can see that back out on the practice field with what he's doing.
(on if his knee bothers him anymore)
Not at all. Actually, I'm about two or three days away from almost going on a year, then about two weeks away from a year out of surgery. I rarely think about it. I did a good job in the offseason. I had a great health run here, and it's something that I have to do a little bit of maintenance on a few days out of the week just to keep the leg strong. When I'm out there playing, it's the last thing on my mind.
(on working with Johnny Manziel)
It's been great. I don't pay attention much to the media. I know, obviously, there's a lot of hype around Johnny (Manziel), but when Johnny's in the building, he's been great. We've developed a good relationship, and I think for us, I know in the past couple of weeks we've had packages where he's on the field, and I think if anything, it makes the defense prepare a little longer and have to be prepared for something that he's capable of doing. It's been fine. For me, like I said, when you ignore all the noise outside the building, it makes life pretty simple.
(on his pass to Johnny Manziel)
We were just talking all week. We said, 'We're either going to be on Top 10 or Not Top 10,' and unfortunately we were probably on Not Top 10 because the back didn't get set. We weren't really sure if it was going to work or not.
