Tuesday, August 13, 2024
LB Jordyn Brooks
(Obviously you didn’t play on Friday, but from your perspective on the sideline, how did you notice your teammates that were on the field picking up this Defensive Coordinator Anthony Weaver system?) – “I thought it was good. Any game – it was a long game. It was a lot of plays, so any time you’ve got a lot of plays there are going to be some mental errors and mistakes, but for the amount of young guys that we had out there – even vets, first year in the system – I thought that the mistakes were limited and played great defense.”
(What was it like being on the sideline for a preseason game? I’m sure it’s kind of like an internal conflict of always wanting to play but knowing that this is we are where we are in the season?) – “It’s kind of like a bittersweet thing. Like as a competitor when you get out there, you want to play. You feel the juices from the game, but at the same time, it’s an opportunity for young guys to get their reps in, show the coaches (and) organization that they can play football. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds.”
(We saw you knock down a pass today. Your numbers in pass coverage were good last year. Is that something that you’ve made an emphasis over the past couple years to improve and how do you do it?) – “I didn’t knock it down – I dropped it and so I’m trying to catch it next time. But yeah, that’s always the emphasis (in) all of my game, try to get better in each and every phase. So next practice I plan on catching it.”
(The defense had a good showing out today. What do you think was behind that?) – “It’s just the standard every day. You can’t be perfect every day, but we’re trying to be great and not just be one of them teams that talk about it but actually put in the work, day in and day out. Practice is the only time that we get that opportunity to be better, so I think everybody has a collective mindset of getting it done.”
(I know you made a really good recovery last year from an ACL. You played a whole season, but do you feel different at all this year, another year removed from that?) – “Yeah, I feel great. I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life. Got down here, lost a lot of weight, put on some muscle. I think the strength staff and the nutrition staff here have just been great for me as far as getting myself in the best shape that I’ve been in. So I feel the best that I’ve ever been in my career.”
(You said you lost some weight. Where do you want to play this year weight-wise?) – “Two-thirty. Right now I’m 230. I haven’t played that since high school and so I feel good, feel fast, feel light. So everything’s good.”
(Saw a couple plays there where it looked like you anticipated both pass and run game and got there before the receiver or the running back. I’m just curious, what do you think contributes to that for your game to playing so fast?) – “Just being instinctive and knowing what’s going on. Just doing your pre-snap reads, playing ball and knowing what the offense likes to do in a certain formation or just anticipating. I think that helps you play fast.”
(Going back to injury, the mental side of learning to trust your knee again and not to have that in the back of your mind – how long of a process does that take?) – “I think for me personally I never had that problem. I always believe in my Lord and Savior Jesus, and he helped me go out there and play worry-free from Day 1 when I came back. So I never had that problem and that’s what I trust in.”
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
QB Tua Tagovailoa
(So do you think you’ll play in this preseason game?) – “I hope so. It’s always good for any of us, whether you’re a vet or whether you’re new, to get some reps, get back into the pregame routine, get back into the feel of what it feels like to prepare getting ready for a game, all of that. Get in to game-like situations, getting hit – hopefully not, but you never know when you’re out there and sort of the mental gymnastics of that when you prepare for a game.”
(How does that work with Head Coach Mike McDaniel? Do you negotiate with him? Or he just says, ‘This is what it is?’) – “I think it’s sort of like a mutual thing. He gets with the leaders of the team, guys who have established themselves and guys who have earned the respect of the guys in the locker room – gets with those guys and has a conversation with them and we come up with basically the idea of ‘Yeah, we’re all playing’ or ‘Maybe not this one,’ or ‘We’ll see what that looks like.’ Hopefully we do get that opportunity. It would be good because this is our last one at home before we go to Tampa and then we actually start the season.”
(Is there anything different about the red zone calls this year? And obviously you don’t want to give away strategy, anecdotally it appears to me that you guys are going a little bigger – going to tight ends more, running more. Is that the case or no?) – “I would say not necessarily, it’s just a new look with the defense that we’re seeing. If you look at the past couple years, outside of (Josh) Boyer’s defense, it hasn’t really been the same since then of the looks that we get in the red area and then third downs and situationally. We’re just taking what the defense gives us and if entails us to throw it more to the big guys down there, that’s what it entails us to do.”
(These are kind of the dog days of camp. Obviously the excitement when it started and excited when it ends, but how do you get through this middle part and what do you look for at this time of year?) – “I think you really just got to look at it like one day at a time, sort of have that mentality. If you start to look into the future of things, then you start to think of unnecessary things like ‘OK, what am I going to do? How am I going to prepare for that?’ I mean, you still got to get through this practice, you still got to get through this rep, you still got to get through this play. And I think that’s sort of how you take it. So now that practice is over, OK, what’s the next thing that I got to focus on? All right, it’s my nutrition. All right, it’s my weight room training, it’s my conditioning. Whatever that entails for you, so that’s why I think guys are pretty adamant about their routines and what not.”
(Are you still experimenting or is this fine-tuning time yet? As far as an offense, where are you at?) – “I would say just because of the guys we don’t have out there at certain positions, it really forces us to work on some other things and get really good. It’s really just getting back to the basics and really honing in on that – what the footwork is, what that play asks of us to do with our job, and from there we do it.”
(What was your assessment of the other two quarterbacks in Friday’s preseason game?) – “Like I said whether you’re a vet, whether you’re not, for everyone it’s to get the jitters out, for them to get back into the routine of things. I’m sure it was a little dicey for them getting out there because you’re getting new guys. It’s not the same guys as last year that are snapping to you, that you’re having to call the plays to, you’re having to tell what to do, so everything is new with the guys that they got to go with. I think they handled themselves really well, I think they did a pretty good job.”
(How long do you think it takes to develop chemistry with a guy like WR Odell Beckham Jr. or TE Jonnu Smith, the two new weapons that you have?) – “I think in order for me, at least, as a quarterback to be able to create chemistry with someone, I got to see how they run routes. I got to see how they are on their brakes, ‘OK, this guy I can’t really, really zip the ball. I got to layer it a little bit because when he breaks out of his route it’s not as fast as it is with Tyreek’s.’ Or ‘Jaylen on his out routes, it’s not as fast as it is with Tyreek’s,’ so maybe sometimes you do have to layer in. You’ve just got to know the personnel in that aspect and then with the footwork that we have for different in-breaking routes, the timing of that as well for those guys. Are they guys that like to turn their body to get in front of the ball? Or are they guys that love to run through the ball? So that has a lot to do with placement and building chemistry with those guys in this offense.”
(OL Aaron Brewer now is going to miss some time, how key was the time that you did have with him? And how key will it be not having time with him before the regular season starts?) – “It was very key having ‘Brew’ (Aaron Brewer). We were just getting into a good rhythm. Unfortunately that’s what he’s dealing with now, but I’ve had Liam (Eichenberg) the entire last year, so I have the utmost faith and confidence that we’ll be able to get back to doing what we need to do. I mean you can see it out there – not a lot of dropped snaps, if any, so it’s been really good.”
(We’ve heard the statement throughout camp about trying to make it as hard as possible on each other, offense and defense. I’m curious how would you describe that and the benefit of trying that?) – “I think you try to make it as hard as possible just because you know the defense that you’re going against – for us, we try not to focus on what our defense does. Essentially, it’s with the mindset going out (that) as long as you know what you got to do and you play within the rules and what the play entails for you to do, you should be fine regardless of what they do. If you’re hot, you know where you’re hot answer is. If you’re not hot and you got to go through your progression, two-high, one-high, you know where you should go with the ball. It makes it hard that way so that by the time that we do come to season, we understand what we’re going against and sort of makes it a little easier. Going against these guys, they’ve seen a lot of the plays, they’ve seen a lot of the tendencies that we have with motions, motion snap points and where we’re trying to beat them with the weakness of their coverages. So that’s what makes it tough and it makes it good for both of us.”
(So that entails like, if you get a look you don’t like, not checking and trying to run into that look so you can get the rep of it on tape, is that something you do?) – “That’s not the idea, but essentially that’s what you get to if we don’t have the right play we would want. It’s like all right, this is the play we got, that’s not the look we want to throw this into, we’re going to live with it because if that’s not open, you know that’s why you have the progression here to here. And so it’s just working on the training on that.”
(What were your thoughts on RB Jaylen Wright’s performance? How quickly has he acclimated to this complicated offense?) – “He’s acclimated pretty quick. I think that was one of the first times I can really say that I’ve seen his personality with running the ball. Runs the ball and then throws one of those – I was like OK, he’s got some swag to him. And I think he’s still trying to feel out the guys, he’s still trying to feel out the offense. I think once he feels comfortable and gets comfortable, then I think we’ll all start to see his personality flourish.”
(Have you had a chance to throw with WR Odell Beckham Jr. some? I know he’s not able to practice.) – “Yeah, I got to throw with him some. Not routes wise, but him spot catching, him getting to see the way the ball spins, get a feel of it.”
(What gives you confidence that you guys will be able to hit the ground running when he comes back?) – “I’ll tell you what. I think it’s more confidence for him once he’s able to start running and catching balls and seeing it in that sense with guys across from him. Then also it’s a whole other thing to do that and then also he has to know where to line up and then what that play is, if he has a motion or if he doesn’t have a motion. So that’s where I think will be one of the tougher parts, and it’s not just for him but for everyone and anyone trying to get to know the playbook in this offense, it is tough.”
(You’ve talked about I guess the motion in this offense. This offseason has kind of been a reemphasis on that motion. How much has that affected maybe you in practice and the legality of the motion?) – “I mean I wouldn’t say any of them are motions that are illegal, I mean at least they didn’t call it. We’re not having Tyreek (Hill) run from ten yards all the way up to the line of scrimmage. (laughter) But outside of that, it just gives us different ways to present what we want to see with the defense. OK, if this guy is moving just a little bit, we know we have this little crease of space right here for this route. And you know where the guys are going to be, it’s just defensively what a certain motion does to them and then what we get from that?”
(Where do you see WR Odell Beckham Jr. fitting this offense once he finally gets on the field?) – “Well, I’ve got to see ‘O’ (Odell Beckham Jr.) catching and running routes with our guys first and getting into the mix first before I can say anything. What I can tell you though is the guys out there, they’ve been working their ass off in this heat and they’ve been studying. Like I said, it’s not an easy offense to learn, so I just want to commend the guys that are out there. It’s hard, because there’s a lot of guys that are also down too. So the guys that are there that are out there right now, I commend them for what they’re doing. So hopefully we can – God willing we can stay healthy and continue to stay healthy throughout this year for all of our positions.”
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
LB Emmanuel Ogbah
(LB Jaelan Phillips came back from injury finally yesterday. What’s it like having on the field these past two days?) – “It feels good. We know how much he put work in just to get back out there, we’re happy to see him. He brings that energy back from the old LB room, so we’re just happy to see him back out there with us.”
(Head Coach Mike McDaniel had said that he’s at y’all’s level mentally despite not being able to get any reps on the field. Has he been active in the meeting room and on the sideline for you guys?) – “Oh yeah, he’s there every day. We’re there learning together, talking together during special teams, when we’re having walkthroughs. He was mentally locked in, so I know it’s going to be an easy transition for him coming back out there.”
(How have you seen the rest of the pass rushing unit develop in his absence? How much will that depth help once he’s back?) – “It will definitely help. Any time you have Jaelan (Phillips) on the field, it always helps everybody else. We’re happy to see him back out there, but the guys in the room are still working to get better every day. Working together, that’s what training camp is about.”
(LB Chop Robinson had another good day today. Where have you seen the most growth from Day 1 to now with him?) – “He’s listening, man. He’s listening, coachable. He’s asking the right questions. I’m happy to see him get better every day. He’s always working, he’s always asking for advice. The sky is the limit for him.”
(What did you gather about the team in joint practices last week?) – “We’re fighters. We got each other’s backs. We know how to work well together when we have another team come in here. We’re coachable. We listen. We work hard and we try to be the best on the field, the best defense on the field every day.”
(You’re playing kind of hungry out there almost every day. I know you talk about kind of unfinished business. Can you talk about your personal motivation? It feels like you’re taking it serious every day out there.) – “You can never take this game for granted. Just sitting on the couch, training and also mentally preparing for my opportunity, I finally got it. I’m talking full advantage of it.”
(We don’t know a lot about these defensive tackles. They are in the mix for roster spots, obviously DT Teair Tart is no longer with the team. What can you tell us beyond the top two or three guys?) – “We got guys hungry; they want that spot. We got Calais (Campbell) and Zach (Sieler), we need that third guy that’s going to step in. Benito (Jones) is there, (Brandon) Pili is doing a great job for us too. But you know guys are hungry, guys want to play. Guys want to be a part of this squad, so they are working constantly.”
