Sam Madison – January 5, 2023
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Thursday, January 5, 2023
Cornerbacks/Pass Game Specialist Sam Madison
(You have so much history here. The finale against the Jets – as a player can you take us back? How much do you want to get rid of all these Jets fans coming in here and taking away home field advantage?) – “Always. You always want to do that and then you know they want to come in and play spoiler. Same if it was us going anywhere else. That’s just the way that this division is built. None of us like each other very much and we know that, they know it, the fans know it. So it’ll be a lot going on in the stands, but it’s been cut back a little bit. I’m just ready and excited for these guys to go out here and put it on the line, just being able to talk them through the things that that myself, Pat (Surtain), this organization has been through with these franchises over the course that we’ve been here. Just want to get this game done and over with. But the guys are locked in and ready to go. We’re going to keep them focused and we know what the end result is and they know as well. So it’s going to be a dogfight and I think our guys are ready and prepared for it.”
(As a player, do you remember seeing a lot of Jets fans taking over the stadium?) – “Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of New Yorkers that moved down here over the course of time so they’re always going to come and support their teams. Even if it’s Giants fans, I mean, just a lot of New Yorkers. So they’re going to come, they’re going to be loud. They’re always loud and then we’ll start smacking them around and then they’ll be quiet. (laughter)”
(One of the unfortunate things of this season obviously has been that CB Byron Jones has not been at a spot where he feels he can help you. Have you had any heart-to-heart talks with them in the last three weeks where you’ve asked him, “is there anything you think you’re physically well enough to give us?”) – “I haven’t. I leave Mike (McDaniel) and the training staff with that. But just when I first got here, just being able to watch tape on Byron (Jones), wishing that I had an opportunity to work with him. But I haven’t throughout the course of the offseason, or not even in the season. So I think he could have helped us, but injuries, they come up. Things happen. Some people fight through them. Some people don’t. But right now, we can’t really worry about it. We only can worry about the guys that we have here and that’s what I’ve been doing – trying to focus on the guys that we have. We have a young group of guys here that still needs a lot of attention, so I haven’t focused much attention on anybody else unless they would have been here.”
(I have a micro and a macro question for you. The first one is CB Noah Igbinoghene gave up a touchdown pass earlier in the Patriots game. What happened there? It looked like they had kind of a rub route and some motion. What would you liked to have seen better with that?) – “It was a scheme issue. Something that we talked about. One of our things was in certain situations, we would have different levels and sometimes we would be close to one another. But the communication part, it has to be quicker. It has to be faster when you’re going. And that’s why a lot of people do the motions and the jet motions and all those different things, so you don’t have opportunity to sit and discuss things. So they move things really, really fast. So that’s why pre-snap communication is very important. Really just trying to always communicate with these guys, being able to look across the formation, but because of the situation that he was in, being that he was on the left, and they had the safety out to the right, being able to look over there and being able to communicate ahead of time, it just was a situation where they didn’t communicate very well. But things that we worked on in practice, things that we took them through, just being able to speed the process up and understanding what you’re getting; that is the most important part of these guys understanding how fast it’s going to go and how quickly you have to communicate.”
(Big picture with CB Noah Igbinoghene. He was kind of put into action after some injuries early in the season, then he had some string of inactives and now he’s kind of back playing a bigger role. Where have you seen him grow the most this year?) – “Well, just staying focused. You throw a guy into the fire, things good and bad happen to him and then all of a sudden, you don’t really know what his mindset is going to be coming back. I just like the way he’s been consistent over the course of the season because any of us – we go out there and like, ‘Hey, go and play, you make a couple of good plays.’ And it’s like, ‘Oh, you can’t play anymore.’ Now psychologically, it throws you off. But just being ready – one of the things that I always talk about with the young guys is just like that, you can be in the game and ready to go. It happened to me as a rookie. Then you just got to know exactly what the game plan is and to go out there and execute it. So with Noah, I’m just really happy that he’s had the focus to stay focused because he could have went left, he could have went right. But he’s just stayed right down the middle and staying consistent. He had some really good reps over the course of the time that he’s been in there. A couple of bad reps, but he’s building, he’s growing. So we’re very confident and happy that he’s able to stay with the game plan and stay consistent when we do have an opportunity to put them in the game.”
(This is often in a different direction, but as I’m sure you know, last night, Zach Thomas was named finalist for the Hall of Fame.) – “Oh, yeah, about time. Come on, man, we got to get him in there. Are you going to sit there, are you going to help him, are you going to write some scripts to get him in there? (laughter) Everybody else helped help all the other guys get in there. We need you guys help him get in there. So I mean, Zach (Thomas), you look at the things he’s done and you look at the guys that have gone before him; I mean, he should have been in there a couple of years ago, but we’re going to keep fighting for him. He knows that one day he’s going to be in there and these are the things that we can’t control. It’s something we talk about all the time, that you can’t really control certain stuff. This is one of them. But he’s eventually going to get in there. Just hoped that he would have got in there sooner. But one day he’s going to be in there and hopefully it’s this year.”
(When you look back at playing in the Dolphins-Jets rivalry, what is your favorite moment and maybe your least favorite? A lot of which I think I know…) – “Winning on a Monday and losing on Tuesday. (laughter) Yeah, yeah. But you know, just always being able to beat these guys, just shutting these fans up. That’s one of the things. And then just trying to get our young guys to understand that. It’s always going to be a tough, hard-fought game. But being able to be down here at home, the (season) finale, to be able to knock them off and send them off with a sour taste in the mouth is going to be feeling really, really good.”
(How proud are you of CB Kader Kohou? I mean, to get an undrafted kid who wasn’t at the highest level of college football and to know now you have a reliable NFL cornerback is how satisfying?) – “Very satisfying. When you talk about the little things, and you know you’re going to get some good, you’re going to get some bad. You expect that from a rookie, but just the way that he triggers, the way that his mindset is. He’s had a cast on his hand that really has hindered him from making a lot of other plays, but he doesn’t complain about it. He just goes to work. But just being consistent and having an opportunity as a rookie to not get overwhelmed by like you said, coming from a small school and being a starter and being relied on, on a consistent basis, moving from the star position out to the corner position. It’s a lot on his plate, but just being able to absorb all that stuff and then go out there and compete and play the way he’s playing and have the confidence that he has and making the plays, you tip your hat off to those guys. That’s why these scouts – you look at Chris (Grier) and his staff going out and doing their due diligence and finding players like this; this is what you do it for. Because you never know those diamonds in the rough that you’re going to be able to find and he’s definitely one. I’m just really happy to have him around and he’s very good in the room. The veteran guys, they’re always going to give the young guys a lot of hassle, but they’ve done very well with him and he’s absorbed it very well. Everybody goes through it. I went through it as a rookie. He’s going to go through it as a rookie. (Jevon) Holland went through it. Everybody’s going to do it and he’s doing very well for us.”
(I was going to ask you real quick your reaction last Thursday, when a fluke-ish thing happened with CB Xavien Howard banging knees in practice. Was your reaction “I can’t believe this is happening to my unit again, what the heck?” What was your emotional reaction?) – “Hey, listen, hey, next guy’s in there. That’s our motto around here. That’s the motto in the NFL. You look at this point of the season, everybody’s dealing with something. Everybody’s dealing with injuries. This is the part of the season where guys really have to – the things that we talked about at the beginning, taking care of your body, understanding what’s going to happen, you know you’re going to break down here or there – but having the strong mind and continue to do all your workouts and knowing the little small details are going to catch up. And this is what we’re relying on. You’re going to rely on your technique, you’re going to rely on your teammates to go out there and be successful. So next man up, not missing and just like you talked about with Noah (Igbinoghene), I had confidence for him to go out there. Are you going to get those explosive plays? You don’t know. You see the different big plays that go down the field and you want those guys out there that you know are your starters and your stars to be able to help you; but when you don’t, the next guy’s got to go in there and get it done and that’s why I feel confident enough to be able to put those guys whoever it is out on the field.”
