Q: Any of the guys from last week back at practice?

BRIAN DABOLL: (Linebacker) Darius (Muasau) will be back. (Cornerback Nick) McCloud still won’t practice today. Everybody else will be practicing.

Q: What went into the decision to go with (kicker) Greg Joseph?

BRIAN DABOLL: Thought he was the best option for us. So, he’ll come out and kick. Had a good kick last time we played against him, a 61-yarder. But again, he’s been on a lot of teams. He’ll come out here and get the operation down with the holder, with the snapper, and see how it goes.

Q: Other than personnel obviously, how much has (Browns Defensive Coordinator) Jim Schwartz’s defense changed now that he’s with Cleveland versus when he was with Philly?

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, I have a lot of respect for Coach Schwartz. He’s been doing it a long time. Started way back in Cleveland with that group of young coaches. Tennessee for a long time. Obviously, the head coach of Detroit, Philadelphia, Buffalo. He’s always had good success. He plays a certain style that I think he believes in, and they do it at a high level. That wide nine technique, four guys rushing off the edge. Good rushers. In the back end, there’s a variety of things that they do. But he’s always been pretty good at calling up defenses.

Q: You’ve known (wide receiver) Malik (Nabers) now for a while, getting to know him and everything. How do you think he’s going to handle the drop and the negativity and things like that?

BRIAN DABOLL: I try to focus on the stuff that we control. That’s for everybody. I have a lot of confidence in Malik. He also made a lot of plays for us. Confident young man. Keep on building.

Q: He’s not a guy who’s probably dealt with a lot of failure?

BRIAN DABOLL: I think that’d be a good question for him, but I do know he’s got the right mindset. Controls the things he can control. Works extremely hard. Knows the game plans inside and out and I have a lot of confidence in him.

Q: How much does third down percentage from an either offensive or defensive standpoint carry over from one game to the next? Or are they just all independent things?

BRIAN DABOLL: I’d say they’re independent. Each team plays a little bit differently. You’re in different situations in terms of field position, maybe in a game. Maybe you have more third and short, more third and medium, third and long. Again, it’s something that we practice quite often, and we’ll continue to do that.

Q: Is (cornerback) Adoree’ (Jackson) ramped all the way up? If so, do you expect him to have a bigger role?

BRIAN DABOLL: I think he’s getting there. I think he feels pretty good. Again, we’ll see. We have (cornerback Cor’Dale) Flott and (cornerback Deonte) Banks and we threw Adoree’ in there in certain situations. We’ll see how it goes this week.

Q: Do you want to see desperation from your team this weekend?

BRIAN DABOLL: No, I want to see consistency like we talk about every week. Go in, prepare the right way, come out, play a good football game, do good in situations, play together. Each week is its own week, and we’ll just focus on the Browns this week.

Q: How do you think your defense has been adjusting to (Defensive Coordinator Shane) Bowen’s scheme?

BRIAN DABOLL: Good in the red zone last week. I thought good in the first game. There were some things last game, really in every area, but I think Shane’s done a really good job leading his group, our group, the defensive group. Obviously certain things we got to correct and fix and that’s what he’ll do and we’ll do.

Q: Did you mention 0-2 in your team at all this week?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I’d say once we talk in our meetings, we keep it in our meetings.

Q: Are records and going 0-2 versus going 1-2 or 0-3, is that up there or is that down there?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I’d say the focus is on doing everything you can do this week, like we try to do every week. You put as much preparation time of going back and studying tape as a coaching staff, trying to scheme things up in all three phases and then the players come in and you have meetings with them. You really got to focus on the game you’re playing this week, which is the Cleveland Browns. They’re 1-1. They just played a good game down in Jacksonville. Played well defensively, started off the game fast, made some good plays early on in the game, got off to a lead. The first game, it was a competitive game, I’d say, all the way almost to the end of the first half and it kind of slipped away from them in the second half, (Cowboys wide receiver KaVontae) Turpin returns a punt there when they were in a backed up situation. Now you’re playing out of sorts on offense against a really good defensive team that can get after the passer. They turned the ball over twice, gave up a punt return. That’s where our focus is on, the Cleveland Browns.

Q: Do you change practice workloads this week with a short week and the game coming next Thursday?

BRIAN DABOLL: I wouldn’t say a ton. That’s something that we’ve talked about. (Executive Director of Player Performance, Medical, Strength & Conditioning) Aaron Wellman has done a great job since he’s been here with practice schedules, reps, pulling back, adding more. We’ve kind of allotted, I’d say, the last two weeks the amount of reps, the accumulative of reps to… you have another one pretty soon right after this. It’s really been a cumulative since the beginning of the season.

Q: You kept like six or seven guys in the pass protection. More max protect than most teams. The way your O-line has played, does that give you more confidence that you don’t have to do that as much?

BRIAN DABOLL: Well, there was a reason for it too. It was some action stuff where you’re making the run and the pass look the same. Again, we used quite a bit of action, I would say, last week that complemented the runs that we were running. Maybe it’s more of a dropback. You can use empty; you can go drop back; you can do a variety of things. Last week, based on what we were getting and what we wanted to do as the game kind of evolved, that’s probably why the numbers are high.

Q: When you were asked about Bowen before, the first thing you mentioned was that they did well in the red zone. I’m just curious, obviously you don’t want to give up seven field goals every game, but is that philosophically where you want to be, giving up threes and not sevens and kind of buckling down in that red zone?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, absolutely. Four-point plays are critical. Three-point game. Playing well in the red zone, you’ve got to do a good job of keeping them out of the red zone more and continue to evolve offensively and score when we’re down in the red zone, which in the first game we didn’t. Last game we did. The consistency factor early on in the year on both sides we’ll continue to work on.

Q: (Browns defensive end) Myles Garrett, what challenges does he present? How do you prepare to go up against a player like that?

BRIAN DABOLL: He’s one of the best ones in the league. They’ve lined him up in a variety of spots. He’s explosive. He’s strong. He’s powerful. He’s got good size. He can run. He takes the ball away. He gets it away from the quarterback. You do the best job you can on practicing with the look team, but it’s never the same until you’re playing a player like that. He’s a high-level player in this league. He’s been for a long time. He’s one of the really good ones. He’s certainly a challenge.

Q: With the way that Nabers is producing, do you sense at some point somebody’s going to say ‘we’re just not going to let him beat us’ and they’re going to force you to go elsewhere?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, could be. I think that’s a good question for the defensive coordinators. Again, however the game plans out, then you adjust. Whatever the targets were, that was a byproduct of what we were getting too as well. See how it goes game to game.

Q: Is he a player that can transcend that?

BRIAN DABOLL: What’s that?

Q: There’s some guys that if the other team takes somebody away, you’re kind of stuck.

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I’d say we’re in game two. Again, I have a lot of confidence in him. A lot more football to be played here.

Q: Do you find in your head coaching experience so far that you have to approach a team differently after a close loss versus a close victory? Sometimes the game is almost the same. One or two plays and you lose. Do you find you go in a little different to them?

BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a carbon copy method. Again, you look at how you played, you are truthful with how you played, of the things that you need to be better at, really in all four phases: coaching, special teams, defense, and offense. You talk to them about what you see. How can we improve it? You really want solutions on days after or leading up to the week. Why we’re doing what we’re doing game plan wise. ‘What do they do? This is why we got this in. These are the formations we’re using. Rather do this personnel in this. This is what we want to do on kickoff, we’d rather kick it deep, we’d rather not.’ Those are all the conversations you have. You spend a lot of time here. You put everything you got into it. You just try to be as truthful and honest as you can when you go through, whether it’s a win or whether it’s a loss, but consistency is important too. You don’t want to ride a roller coaster.

Q: What do you see when you go up against a quarterback like (Browns quarterback) Deshaun Watson at this point in his career?

BRIAN DABOLL: I think Deshaun is a good player. They started out fast against Jacksonville last week. They had a 17-play drive. They utilized him in a variety of ways. He can operate the empty game well where he gets it out quick. They use him in the action game. They can zone read him. He’s done that as well. Scramble to loose plays. He’s a strong player to bring down. You saw that against (Cowboys linebacker) Micah Parsons in the Dallas game where he scrambles, gets to the right. He’s got the ball in one hand, waves it around, throws it down the field strong. He’s played the game for a long time. I got a lot of respect for Deshaun’s game.

Q: In addition to Myles Garrett, what sort of challenges does the Cleveland defense present you guys?

BRIAN DABOLL: A lot. They can get after the passer. Penetrating front. They play a lot of man to man, and they mix in their zones. They do a great job of disguising. They’ve been effective. Coach Schwartz, like I said before, does a great job. And then they’ve got good players. (Browns cornerback Denzel) Ward’s a heck of a corner. All three levels, they’re well coached.

Q: What did you see from (quarterback) Daniel (Jones) this past week that you didn’t see the week before?

BRIAN DABOLL: Each week’s different. I told you before I thought he improved. Continue to try to do that. Made good decisions. Threw the ball where he needed to throw the ball. That’s what we’ll try to get him to do this week.