Eric Rowe – January 4, 2021
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Monday, January 4, 2021
S Eric Rowe
(What do you think happened yesterday in terms of why the team performed at that level when we haven’t seen that from you guys going back to last year, the third game of the season?) – “I’m not sure. I’m not sure what happened that game because that’s definitely not us as a team, really the whole year. That reminded me of last year when we were getting beat by Baltimore like that. I was like, ‘yeah, I remember that feeling.’ So it’s not a good feeling, but I’m not sure what happened. There’s no like exact words you can just put on it. Maybe it was just like a kind of feeling, like the energy was dying and then after that, they were just taxing it on us. But I’m not sure what happened.”
(Your teammates have mentioned it. I’m sure you agree that yesterday was not representative of how this team actually is, that you’re a much better team than that. I’m curious, do you think this is a close team? Do you think this is a team that is poised to take the next step this year or did it kind of expose some things you all need to work on?) – “It’s a little bit of both. It did kind of expose things that we need to work on to make that jump for next year, but looking from last year, from the 2019 season to this season, it was a huge jump. So now we’re obviously planning to take that momentum from this year to next year to make that next step where we can compete with playoff-contending teams.”
(What was it like playing with CB Xavien Howard this season? He obviously balled out, had his 10th pick yesterday and he’s in the conversation for Defensive Player of the Year, so as a teammate, what would kind of be your final pitch to the ones listening out there?) – “It was definitely a special year seeing him kind of rise, especially after last year going through the surgery and something with his knee; especially as a DB, that’s tough to recover from. Just to go from that to get double-digit interceptions and to lead the league in picks and now in talks for Defensive Player of the Year, that’s not easy. And just playing alongside him, watching him play; it kind of amazes you because you’re watching it firsthand in-person from practice, training camp, all the way to the end of the season. I haven’t been around a guy close to being like that, that’s up there – like Stephon Gilmore when I played with him – so it’s pretty amazing.”
(I know you’ve only had about 24 hours now to reflect upon it. Maybe you haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m curious, how would you look back at your first full season at the safety position, but also you mentioned this offseason kind of having to prepare for that new position in a unique offseason. What can you take this year and apply to the offseason program to maybe get yourself more ready this season for your second full year as a safety?) – “I haven’t really gotten time to look back at the whole season, but I guess as my first full year at safety, I feel like I made a lot of improvements in the run game, something I had trouble with last year obviously coming from corner. And then working on that in the offseason, obviously always working on coverage stuff. You can never get enough work at that. I think for me just to make that next jump is to make those few plays that I left out there on the field against All-Pro-type of players that I’ve got to be able to cover those type of guys if I want to be considered one of the best covering safeties. So that’s something I’ve got to take in the offseason, work on it, improve and then I don’t know next year’s schedule, but hopefully we get that opportunity again.”
(My question is actually about CB Noah Igbinoghene. I’m going to be very curious to see how he comes in Year 2 not having played too much this year. What did you see in terms of his development throughout the year in practice, in meetings and what do you think he might be able to do in his career in the future?) – “He needs to – just like everybody – from Year 1 to Year 2, make that jump and even though he didn’t play much in the games this year – obviously you don’t get to see practice – but his coverage skills have gotten a lot better from whenever we played the Bills early on. We’ve all seen him in practice. He’ll go against DeVante Parker and when Preston (Williams) was here and Jakeem (Grant) and he had some really good coverage plays out there against them with ‘Fitz’ (Ryan Fitzpatrick) and Tua (Tagovailoa) throwing the ball at him, even though a lot of people don’t get to see that. Obviously he’ll take that into the offseason, keep working on it and for next year he’ll make that jump so when his name is called, his number is called again, it’s not going to be like how it was against whenever we played the Bills. So for him in the future, I know a lot of people think you’ve got to go based off that game, but his future is looking great.”
(I’m making an assumption with my next question here. I’m assuming that there were guys who are either frustrated or angry after yesterday’s game. If I am on-target with that, is anger good motivation to lead you into next season?) – “It can go both ways. It can go both ways. It’s a good motivator to kind of remember what that feeling feels like, because obviously you don’t want to feel like that again. But also, the first thing for me, like yeah I was frustrated and kind of angry. Like frustrated at the way the season ended because that’s not like us, but you’ve just got to take that lesson, that experience right there of, ‘Okay, well we know what we have to do, what we have to work on in the offseason, get ready for next season.’ Because you see 10 wins is not enough. It’s a lot. It’s a lot of wins, it’s hard to get, but it wasn’t enough. So yeah, you can take anger as a motivator. For me, yeah I’m frustrated, but I’ll get over it and just take kind of like the lessons that like why did you not make the playoffs throughout the whole year? Or why did we lose this game? Take those kind of theories and work on that for next year.”
(If I could ask maybe a two-parter. One, you talked about the takeaways and you guys were so great at that this year. They always say that takeaways is sort of volatile from year to year. How do you make sure that you guys can still be great in that in 2021?) – “Yeah, the takeaways, they were huge this year. It really started in training camp. Everyone says all 32 teams defensive-wise say, ‘we’ve got to get turnovers.’ Obviously that’s the key to success, we’ve got to get it. Everyone talks about it, but I think from this training camp and last year, we really made it a focus where – I don’t know if y’all remember telling y’all in training camp that we had that game going on between safeties and corners and who can punch the ball out, who can try to get the interceptions. It was just a focus every single day and that carries on in the season. It helped us well. So next year we have to start from – if we can do OTAs – but if we can’t, we have to start from training camp again. We can’t just talk about it. We’ve got to do it all over again because we can go from the best to the worst from year to year.”
(I guess the second part of that question, and I asked LB Jerome Baker this earlier, turnovers was probably one of the biggest jumps that you guys made year to year. If there’s anything that you would point out maybe in 2021 where you would say, “hey, I would love us to make a jump in that area,” what would that be?) – “Like defensive-wise?”
(Yeah, defensively. I guess you could say team as well, but maybe defensively because we were talking defensive categories.) – “I know one thing we do need to improve is – it’s not horrific, but you can always get better – is our run game. Especially early on in the year, we started struggling against the run and kind of from then on, once teams know what you’re weak at, they’re going to keep attacking it. So I know that’s one thing that definitely we can work on for next year. Obviously we’ve got to keep the takeaways, keep the turnovers high and then shoot, maybe another thing is – I don’t even know. I don’t know. We were pretty good in other categories. You keep that consistent, but yeah, the run game; if we can just get that nailed down from the start, it’d be a lot easier.”
