DE Cameron Wake – October 22, 2017 (Postgame)
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Sunday, October 22, 2017
Postgame – New York Jets
Miami Dolphins DE Cameron Wake (transcribed by Ted Leshinski)
(Another nail biter. Another intense game. You had to fight to the end. Do you ever get used to this? You know, coming back from behind. This something you’ve become accustomed to this season? Do you ever get used to that?) – “Well, the minute you step on an NFL field it’s going to be a close game. No matter who you play. Not matter what week it is. So you’ve got to get used to it the first time you strap on the pads. In this league there isn’t normally going to be a 40-point blowout. It’s going to come down to one play. It’s going to come down to the end of the game. Whoever has the ball last the defense has to stop. That’s kind of how it works. So, we’re accustomed to it. That’s the way we have to be built in order to win games in this league.”
(Cam, what was difference in the second half they scored 21 in the first then you pretty much shut them down in the second half?) “Well, I guess I kind of sound like a broken record. This is the nature of the way this team is built. Obviously we’d love to come out and jump on guys fast and start and that’s some things we got to work on. If you’re back is to the wall you got to fight your way out. I don’t think this team is built to lay down and give up. We’re going to come out swinging. I’m sure there’s a lot of factors that play into it. But when it’s hard, when it’s hot, when you’re tired, when you’re sore; at the end of the game that’s when usually it requires the most of you. Now, I’d like to think that the guys that we have in this locker room are built this way. That when it gets tough we’re going to find another gear and do whatever we got to do to make a win. If there’s not a way, find a way or make one.”
(Cam, a big comeback last week … last minute. The same thing this week. You come back from 14 down in the fourth quarter. What is it about this football team that stays so resilient? It knows that as long as there’s minutes left on the clock they’ve got an opportunity.) – “It sounds like a broken record, we’ve been saying this for years. It’s a belief in one another. No matter if there’s time on the clock we still believe we have a chance. Offense believes in the defense. The defense believes in special teams. The special teams believe in offense. So on and so forth, that we’re all going to make plays and play together. Like I’ve said, here’s obviously things we still need to work on but it’s hard to win in this league. And when you have that belief then you’re never technically out of the game. And I think we’ve been showing that over and over and over. Outside of this building people want to count us out, but inside the locker room we believe in one another and that’s why I believe we can still get things done that maybe in other situations it wouldn’t work out.”
(Cam, when you’re down by 14 it seems like the pass rush kind of cranked up a little bit. Was there a sense of urgency that you guys felt at that point?) – “I like to think that our urgency shouldn’t change. The situation in the game may chance, if they hold the ball a little longer or the protection might change. But at the end of the day our goals are always going to be the same, especially up the front. It’s going to be stopping the run and getting to the quarterback. I think, for the most part, we did that. And I think when you do that week in and week out I feel like it’s going to be a pretty solid defense. We enjoy going out there and doing what we need to do to get this W, continue to improve, week in and week out, and enjoy it for a short time and move on to the next.”
(Cam, the last few years around this time of year, October and November, you’ve gone on stretches of four or five games with at least one sack. You’ve doing that again. Why is that? Do you get more comfortable? What is it about this time of year that seems to get you going?) – “(Chuckles) I don’t know. I like to think that I try to get going all times of year. I really have a tremendous cast of guys around me. Guys like (DE) Will Hayes that don’t necessarily maybe make the front page headlines. He’s a guy going in there, stopping the run, getting us into position to be in third and long. He’s doing the dirty work inside, making pressure so that quarterbacks can’t step up. I feel like a lot of the accountability or accolades go to those guys. At the end of the day I might get the sack but it wouldn’t be able to be possible without guys like him, and (Ndamukong) Suh and Jordan Phillips and a bunch of those guys. So, it all has to work together. And when it breaks down we put it on ourselves. You can’t take the glory without the criticism and we have high standards for ourselves. I think it’s us as a group, and hopefully we get better week in and week out.”
(Cam, what is it about your preparation during practice throughout the week that gives you all ready to make the plays whenever they need to be made?) – “For me, and I think I can speak for a lot of the other guys who are out there, again as I told them earlier, most games are going to be one-score games. That’s the way this league is. Everybody is really good. They always have good quarterbacks, receivers, running backs, whatever it may be. When it’s crunch time, the big plays are going to be usually made by the big players. And as you’ve seen over the past few weeks, big players step up in big games and make big plays. And you have to have that mind set yourself. You have that pride about your game and preparation and all the other things and say, ‘Hey listen, it’s third and long. We need a stop. I’m going to be the guy.’ And if each guy has the mentality of ‘I’m going to be the guy’, then I think the way our defense is built we’re going to be tough to be beat.”
(Cam, the Jets lost their right tackle and it wasn’t a coincidence that you became pretty much unstoppable after that. When you see weakness or a change in personnel like that do your eyes get a little wider?) – “I’m going to be frank; I see weakness on Sunday night. Meaning tonight for next game. I see weakness before the game starts. I don’t care who you are – first string, all pro, third tackle … it doesn’t matter. To me you are a weakness. You can’t stop me, no matter when the ball’s snapped. No matter who you are. Three people, two people – it doesn’t matter. That’s the way I feel. It’s a nameless, faceless person that’s in the way of me getting my job done. So, I don’t change my course of action by whoever’s in there. As soon as I put my helmet on the guy that’s going to lineup next to me, he’s is in trouble. That weakness is started from the first time I stepped on the field.”
(Can you take us through CB Bobby McCain’s interception from your perspective and just what the lift was like on the sideline and the field when he did it?) – “Well again, obviously I knew the situation in the game, we were doing our best to obviously get the ball back to the offense so that they could put points on the board and obviously we could close the game out. But again, as I said earlier, it was a situation where we knew we needed the play. And he’s another guy who I think had been playing tremendously well over the course of the season and probably hasn’t been on too many headlines but he’s been working day in and day out to get his job done and he’s always around the ball. Little scrappy little mighty mouse we like to call him. Again, I think he has that same mentality that ‘I’m going to be the guy to make the play.’ Obviously when he gets the ball ‘get what you can and get down and let the offense do what they do.’ So said, obviously they got the ball in position and K (Cody) Parkey put it through the uprights to seal the game.”
(What’s the mentality like once it is crunch time and you guys are tied? You guys don’t want to go to overtime. Is it urgency or is it more of a calm, cool, collective we know how to play our game. Things will work things out.) – “Quick but no hurry in a sense. I think the guys who are going to be on the field; they know their abilities. They know what needs to be done. Again most guys out there played many many snaps. They’ve been in this situation before. You have to do whatever you can and I think whenever your number’s called, like Bobby McCain’s was, it’s your opportunity. You have the whole team on your back at that moment and we’re counting on you to get your job done and he did that. So I don’t think there is, it’s not panic but urgency and that’s a general theme throughout the end of most games in this league. If you don’t have that mentality and you don’t have that ‘I’m going to be the guy’ mentality then get off the field and put somebody else out there.”
(Did you have any issues with the turf today? I know some players were slipping out there.) – “Nope.”
(Did you think Matt Moore coming on gave the team extra motivation?) – “There’s probably 3 guys we lost throughout the game who somebody had to jump in there, and in this league, again, it’s that next man up mentality. Whether it’s injury, shoe lace, somebody needs a drink of water, whatever it is. When you go in and replace somebody wherever it is, quarterback, kicker, right tackle, left tackle. It doesn’t matter. The team expects that same level of performance from the guy you’re replacing. There’s no excuses, there’s no expectations, change, it’s the same thing. So, again I’ve been around Matt for many, many years, I know the kind of player he is and I didn’t have any change of expectations for when he goes in. He did his job and put us in a position to win the game.
(I think it was mid-way through the 4th, you guys were in your rally, the place was absolutely electric, in a way I hadn’t heard before in that building, what was it like to have that moment where it was just (inaudible) in there and you guys were rolling?) – Well, I love playing here, obviously. At home I feel like we have great fans great support, beautiful stadium. And as a defensive player when you’re out on the field, and it’s 3rd down, you can’t hear anything, and neither can they, they don’t know, they can’t make the calls, they make the changes, and they cause false starts or miscommunications or whatever it may be and we benefit from that. So, today the place was electric like you said everybody was standing up screaming and hollering and as a defensive player, you come in on 3rd down, you feel that, you feed off of it and it creates positive plays for us. We love playing south Florida, south Florida fans, Dolph fans, keep bringing that support, we keep bringing the W’s.”
