Thursday, September 12, 2019
(On if he had ever experienced a game where the defense was so overwhelming like the Houston game two seasons ago) “Do we have any questions about this year, this game? I don’t want to answer questions about previous years.”
(On the challenge of facing DeAndre Hopkins) “He had a 99 overall rating on Madden, so that’s damn near un-guardable on Madden, right? It’s pretty much like that in real life, too. It’s tough. It’s one of the toughest battles I have each year, year-in year-out. We always have pretty good battles. Sometimes I hold him to less yardage, whatever it may be. But I know that he’s a tough guy to go out there and guard play-in and play-out or as much as I get the opportunity to guard him. So yeah, I’m excited for the opportunity.”
(On if he ‘gets up’ for this opportunity more so than others because of Hopkins’ skill level) “I get up for every game to be honest with you. I just love football, I’m blessed to play the game each time I get a chance to go out there, but yeah, it’s a little something extra like you said. One of the best, if not the best, in the game. So, any type of competitor, you should try to embrace this and love this.”
(On what separates DeAndre Hopkins from other receivers around the league besides his speed) “You named it. I feel like he’s a complete receiver, he can do a lot. He’s of course Deshaun’s [Watson] favorite target, so he gets a lot of targets per game. He makes the most of his targets that he gets usually. He usually never drops passes ever, it doesn’t matter if he’s guarded. That’s probably one of the toughest things defending him. There’s been times in the past where I’ve had him guarded, like white on rice, and he’s still made an amazing catch, or a one-handed catch or a spectacular catch. You see those from him all the time because he makes difficult catches even if he is covered, double covered, whatever the case may be. He had a couple drops the other day, but it was Week 1, nobody was on their A-game. So yeah, I’m excited for it.”
(On Deshaun Watson’s ability to extend plays) “I’ve been very complimentary of Deshaun before when I talked about quarterbacks, and I said that he was going to be one of the best in the league and I stand by that. I think he is emerging as one of the best in the league. He had an amazing game the other night [versus New Orleans], led their offense. I’m biased, too. That’s a good friend of mine. I talked to him last night, crazy.”
(On if he reached out to Tyreek Hill after the game) “Yeah, I did. I feel bad for anybody who gets injured. Most people don’t know this, but every game before the game I pray, and I pray for safety and health. Of course we go out there and we do in a sense try to hurt each other and gain an advantage, but we don’t want anybody to have a serious injury ever. It kind of made me mad that I saw the clip later on, and they were slowing it down, and zooming in on what happened after the tackle. But if you just look at it in real time there was no foul play in that at all, you can clearly tell what was going on. I pushed Cam[eron] Erving, one of my teammates from college, he was trying to step in front of me, and that’s just what happened, I just bumped him incidentally from pushing Cam. Cam’s like 270 [pounds] or something, I really moved more than he did. But that was all that happened, no foul play in that. Of course I’m going to talk my smack and do whatever, but there was no foul play. So yeah, I reached out to him. I heard it was a serious injury, I didn’t know he was hurt until probably a drive later when coach told us going out there like, ‘Hey, Tyreek’s out, we’re going to switch up some things a little bit.’ But I didn’t know. So yeah, I reached out to him, and he hit me back. Everything’s cool.”
(On if he agrees with Defensive Coordinator Todd Wash that the defense got ‘too cute’ in Week 1) “I feel him. Me and Coach Wash have had some good talks this week. I like our game plan. I like what he’s going to allow me to do and let me play my game.”
(On if he thinks today’s live tackling drills will help the team) “Week 1 of the NFL season I’m sure is probably the week that there’s the most missed tackles ever, so it’s not like a huge concern. Yeah, we have to fix those problems of course. We’re NFL players, we have to know how to tackle. We have to tackle properly and tackle well. Nothing is ever really live, let’s keep it real, but we worked on it.”
(On the three plays from last week he told Defensive Coordinator Todd Wash he wishes he could do over again) “I truly don’t want to talk about last week, but that’s what I told him actually. So him and [Jaguars Secondary Coach – Cornerbacks] Coach [Tim] Wal[Ton], they had told me that I had one bad play during the game, and I’m my own worst critic to be honest with you, and I felt like I had more than just one bad play. I had a few bad plays that I wish I could have back – not really have back, but do something a little bit differently, or take a shot, or whatever the case may be on that particular play. But yeah, I kind of looked at it a little bit more critically than they did, but that’s just who I am.”
(On Kenny Stills’ playmaking ability for Houston) “He had three catches and he had a crucial touchdown. Deshaun sat in the pocket, delivered a nice throw to him, came in the clutch. So yeah, I guess you can say that, but I guess we all know I won’t be matched up on him the majority of the game. So, I’m confident in our other corners, and our safeties and whoever may be matched up on him. And at times I may be matched up on him, [but] I want everybody to know that it’s not 99 percent of the time that I’m going to be on D-Hop.”
(On if this is a bounce back game for the team) “For sure, yeah. We have to. That performance, like we said, I think everybody was in agreeance that that performance is not the performance we wanted to put out there on the field during Week 1. But it’s a long season, so what are we going to do, have a bad attitude about it? Be negative about it? Hey, it happened. It wasn’t what we wanted but we’re going to drop it, we’re going to be positive, we have a lot of good energy going this week, been having pretty good practices and we’re excited for the opportunity on Sunday.”
