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Rob Jones – July 30, 2024 Download PDF version

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

OL Rob Jones

(Year 4 – I would say this is your first legitimate chance of having an opportunity to become a starter. What is that like in terms of the mindset, the mentality, the hunger that you have to have?) – “It’s just like me coming in as an undrafted free agent, just go out there and prove myself right. Go out there and keep learning, get my techniques right. Go out there and be a dawg. Go out there and play hard and not think about it too much and just go play football and everything else is going to fall where it falls.”

(How much does your comfort level in the scheme help you right now?) – “Going in Year 3 in the same system and Year 2 with the same o-line coach (Butch Barry), you’re just able to be in this for a second year, you know what’s going on. You don’t really have to think too much, we know what’s going to happen. We know what we’re going to do combinations, we’re going to do everything. We’ve got the same o-line coach and we know what he wants from us. As I get older, just like ‘T-Stead’ (Terron Armstead) always talks about is technique. So getting my technique down and everything, the confidence keeps building, keeps building. So going into this year, I’m more confident in myself just because I’ve been in here. I’ve been with the same o-line coach. I know what they want from me, I know what I want for myself, and I know what I need to do to help the team.”

(I just asked T Terron Armstead the same question I’m going to ask you: guardian caps – your thoughts on them and any chance that you wear them during a game?) – “Guardian caps – honestly, I like that the NFL is doing the rule that you’re able to wear them in games for a lot of guys who have had a lot of concussion stuff in college and everything and gives them an opportunity to do that. Me personally, I won’t wear them. I love to use them in training camp, it’s just protects you while you’re going out there. The o-line, d-line are all about physicality. We go out there and we’re always aggressive, but when game time comes, we’re just going out there to play football. And the guys who wear it, they want to stay safe. It’s not going to change a thing, just keep you a little bit safer. But for me personally, I won’t wear one.”

(Can you feel much of a difference when you have the guardian cap on versus when you have it off?) – “You really don’t feel a difference. Only difference you can kind of feel is hitting, like a linebacker against o-line. I get up there to the linebacker and make that little hit, it lets up a little bit. But I’ve just been playing football for a handful of years and I’ve never used a guardian cap in a game, so I’m not going to change it now.”

(How much do you like how more physicality is being incorporated into practices now? Pads coming on, you get a third-and-short situation drill going in today’s practice?) – “I love that it’s coming early, because we need that. Football is football. How we run our scheme, just like everybody says, ‘We’re not physical,’ and stuff like that. We are physical, but (Head Coach) Mike (McDaniel) being able to just put that in early builds confidence. And also, it’s just fun. Going out there to go against what will be one of the best defenses, we’re just going out there competing with each other, making each other better.”

(What did the fight for the day? Obviously, frustration, second day of pads, what did the fight do for the environment?) – “It just made training camp, training camp. It made us (say), ‘Offense, alright, we got to go harder. Defense, got to go harder.’ It’s just building confidence on both sides and as a team to let us know that we’re going to be a good team this year and we’re going to be a physical team. Just like guys say, this year we’re going to be the bullies, and that’s what we’ve got to keep focusing on and that’s exactly what it did.”

(You have that mindset? You guys want to be bullies this year?) – “Yeah, we just want to be dawgs. Go out there, play hard, we don’t care about the outside noise. We just want to go out there and be the most physical team on the field.”

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