HEAD COACH TODD BOWLES
(On the status of DL Vita Vea)
"He's getting better and better. Hopefully with a few more days rest we'll look for him on Sunday to work out and see what he can do."
(On the status of RB Leonard Fournette)
"Same thing. He did some things running around. I've got to see a little bit more though before I'm satisfied."
(On players already ruled out for Sunday's game)
"Luke will be out – Goedeke will be out. And Russell Gage will be out."
(On if RB Giovani Bernard could be activated from injured reserve in time to play Sunday)
"Well, he's working out. He's in play. We'll see what 'Lenny' [Fournette] does and then we'll kind of go from there."
(On Browns DE Myles Garrett)
"It's a huge challenge. Obviously he's big, strong, fast. He has an arsenal of pass moves. He's been doing it for a while. He's a sack machine. They've got two of them over there, so it's going to be tough."
(On if LB J.J. Russell could play this week)
"He's in play to come back. He's been running around. We just want to see what everybody else does before we do the numbers."
(On how the players came back from the bye week)
"Most of them looked. Great week of practice, and occasionally outstanding, we've just got to carry it to the game on Sunday."
(On if the team got done what they needed to during the holiday week)
"Yeah, I mean we had a normal practice, we just moved everything up. We had normal practice and meetings, we didn't cut any corners, so we got everything done that we needed to."
(On if the expected cold and windy conditions in Cleveland impacted how the team prepared this week)
"No. I mean, we can't simulate it down here in Florida. We understand where we're going and what we have to play in. Guys have played in cold weather before, so that's not a big deal."
(On it also potentially being rainy)
"We're not going to use that as an excuse."
(On what the expectations are for the offense over the next seven games)
"Of course we're always trying to score, be it in the air or on the ground. So we want to try to get back to how many points we were scoring but things have changed and we just have to approach it differently. But we're expecting to score a lot more points than we scored in the first half of the season."
(On what changes have been made that gives him optimism about scoring more)
"Schematically we've changed some things to help people. Certain people have gotten healthy in the process, so it's just coming together all at the same time. We just have to keep the consistency up."
(On if DL Vita Vea's injury occurred in Germany)
"I think he hurt himself when we got back here. I don't think it was in Munich, I think it was a freak thing that came up. He woke up one day and it was hurting."
(On if that occurred during the bye week)
"I'm assuming it did. I can't tell you that for sure, I just know it wasn't hurt in the game. He wasn't training. He just woke up and it was sore."
-BUCCANEERS-
