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Matt Skura – March 19, 2021 Download PDF version

Friday, March 19, 2021

C Matt Skura

(What was the process like and how many other suitors and why was the Miami the team that won?) – “This is the first time I’ve been through the free agency process, so it was definitely interesting. (I was) kind of trying to stay patient, but kind of anxiously wanting things to move pretty quickly. I had a few different offers. It kind of dwindles down as you get closer and closer to making a decision, and I think the thing with me making my decision to come to Miami was just seeing Coach Flores’ (Head Coach Brian Flores) passion for the game and how much he truly cares about his players and really wanting to improve the culture of this team. I think that was a big thing for me. I wanted to go to a team that’s going to have a great culture, great locker room and also they want to win. That’s the biggest thing at the end of the day, so that was ultimately the biggest thing for me.”

(I’d like to ask you to talk about two things: your return from injury – do you feel better from a health perspective and did the injury impact you at all last year? And the second part – I heard that you had some trouble at some point with snapping. What went on there and what have you and will you do to address that?) – “Coming off the knee injury and then also having to deal with the pandemic last year, and also going into this year, was definitely an interesting situation. Basically, having to create a home gym, finding ways to rehab and get back as strong as possible. And so going into the season, I felt really good and throughout the season felt good as well. The knee held up great. I didn’t really have any problems with it and the things with the snaps; it was the Patriots game where we were having a little bit of a torrential downpour, but I’m someone who really doesn’t like to make excuses. I don’t care if it’s a blizzard, a hailstorm or whatever it is. That’s something that I have to take responsibility for, so that’s been one of the main things in this offseason literally every day – snapping – whether it’s getting 10 snaps in or 30 snaps in. Whenever I can that time basically permits for myself, I’m doing snaps, doing o-line drills, doing everything I can to make myself feel prepared.”

(I heard you mentioned earlier about having to create a home gym and I’ve heard some stories about athletes who had to get extremely creative in doing so. Did you have to kind of go out of bounds and do something crazy in order to create a gym or was it just standard equipment?) – “I didn’t have anything to do – I only had one kettlebell and like, one strength band, and so that was kind of it at first and basically I was like, ‘I need way more than this,’ so I just had to go online and buy a whole bunch of stuff. With the pandemic and everything really starting to ramp up, shipping kind of took forever, so I would get like, half of my equipment in a month and then I would get the other half like two months later. So it was basically like creating a home gym, working out and building one all at the same time. Yeah, you definitely find creative ways to – in your backyard – to do workouts or going to a local park, trying to find ways to run, do sprints, whatever you can. So you definitely get creative.”

(You obviously worked with Ravens QB Lamar Jackson during your time with Baltimore. What does a center need to do for a young quarterback like QB Tua Tagovailoa and a center like yourself? What does a center need to do to help those quarterbacks kind of along?) – “Yeah, I think one of the biggest things is communication – him communicating to me on the line, me communicating any kind of protection, changes that we want to make and also just understanding how he sees the game. Everyone’s different, everyone has different perspectives, so understanding how he sees certain blitzes, how he sees defenses or how he wants to offensive line to protect him are all things that go into it. I think for me, too, just building a relationship off the field definitely helps that as well. Lamar and I have a great relationship off the field, so I think that definitely helped us on the field. So that’s something that has always been big for me, is just building those relationships and when it comes time to play in those games, things become easy and communication becomes that much easier.”

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