Todd Downing, Doug Marrone, and Thomas Brown | Coaches Media Availability 10/29

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You personally, speaking for yourself, concerned about his availability on Sunday?

Todd Downing (0:04)

I just coach the guys that are out there, so whoever Vrape tells me is available, that's who I'll spend my energy on, and I'll take the information as it's given to me.

SPEAKER_3 (0:13)

You guys have Mac on the IR, Romy on the IR, I've seen AJ out there today.

SPEAKER_4 (0:17)

It's a lot of injuries.

SPEAKER_3 (0:19)

How is the group stacking up with all this adversity?

Todd Downing (0:22)

Such a cool opportunity for those guys. We've talked over the last several weeks when I've had the chance to chat with you guys about just the approach of the unit. From Chiz coming in early and preparing for his moment in Buffalo, or Pop being a positive influence and energy for the group. I'm just excited for the guys. Whoever's out there, it's gonna be fun to watch them go out and compete and try to go get a division win.

SPEAKER_5 (0:46)

How concerning is it, because he hopes to build upon what he's trying to build upon for a guy like AJ, to not be able to get out there?

Todd Downing (0:54)

It's been a small sample size for AJ. I think there's been a lot made about a couple of weeks. And my hope and his hope and everybody here's hope is that he starts to get a little bit of traction. I'm not worried about where AJ's at at all.

Certainly haven't had the results that we had hoped for, but that doesn't mean that they're not right around the corner.

SPEAKER_6 (1:15)

Do you think, just given what AJ's been dealing with, that receivers are more susceptible to certain lower body injuries just with the pressure and the plant and the change of direction, the miles they log? Like, is that something that you guys consider in that room or from a training standpoint?

Todd Downing (1:35)

Yeah, we've never talked about injuries at all. Our training staff, our strength and conditioning staff, they do an unbelievable job getting our guys ready to go.

It's a fast and violent game played by real big and powerful men, and so that's part of the game. You just gotta find your way through the Knicks and Bruises, and if it's a little bit more than that, then you deal with those as they come to.

SPEAKER_7 (1:59)

Todd, you got four receivers on the practice squad. Can you just give us maybe just a quick little nugget on each of them, just in how they're progressing from your view? Sure, yeah. Ryan, or wherever you want to say it.

Todd Downing (2:12)

No, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate it. You know, Ryan's the newest to the group, and he's been a great addition. He's certainly brought some wisdom, has a little bit more experience than a couple of the other guys.

He's just sinking his teeth into the verbiage, and right now, it's a little bit of a Spanish to English translation type deal for him, but he's really doing a nice job of, you know, accelerating his learning and doing a good job with some of the routes on the show team. Been really impressed with Chandler, and this is now a few weeks with him around, and he's been playing fast, improving on the things that we asked him to improve on. Give a lot of credit to Riley Larkin. He does some extra meeting with those guys, watching their show team reps, and putting them in our terminology.

And Riley's done a nice job of helping him feel like he can make decisions faster. So I like where he's at. Cam Dorner's been doing a nice job ever since training camp. You see good movement skills with him, and he's learned to have a little bit more versatility on some of the stuff that we've asked him to do on the show team. So impressed with his improvement as well. And then Kyle Dixon, I think we discussed him in the off season. He was a little bit limited through OTAs and in the off season, and wasn't able to really sink his teeth into his role. But his training camp came in the pre-season games came. You saw the physical skill set. We've seen nothing but improvement from there. So all four of them working really hard, really good students. And the coolest thing is watching them emulate the Efton Chisholm's and Mac Holland's and the work ethic they put in to try to grow.

SPEAKER_5 (3:40)

We've seen you kind of have some cool moments with these guys. You were just talking about Romeo, got off to a little bit of a slow start with AJ.