De’Von Achane – November 5, 2024
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Tuesday, November 5, 2024
RB De’Von Achane
(You probably just heard T Terron Armstead say you’re probably the most confident guy he’s ever been around. What’s your reaction?) – “I told that his list wasn’t long enough. He needed to say some more words, but mentor really, though, that’s my locker buddy as y’all can see when y’all come in the locker room. He’s right next to me so we talk day-in just about the little things that we can do to improve the run game that’s going on every game day. So yeah, I told him, ‘man, you need to make sure to the list is a little longer next time.”
(Do you put a lot of stock in that? Where does that confidence come from?) – “I feel like you’ve got to be confident. You’ve got to be confident in yourself for anything. Like this is something that I’ve been having. I’ve been this way ever since I started playing football at a young age. I just feel like I can go out and I can make plays and do a lot of things with the football, so the confidence that I have, it’s a mindset thing. I think if you don’t have confidence in yourself, then I think you’re playing the wrong sport.”
(Just wanted to ask obviously you’ve displayed a lot more of your pass catching chops this year. What did you work on in the offseason to really prepare yourself for the pass catching opportunities this year?) – “I feel like, catching footballs, it really comes natural to me growing up and I always played running back, but I played other positions as well as far as playing receiver in the slot. So when it comes to catching the football, it’s like me running the football. That’s how I think of it. It’s something that I do, something I’m great at and this offseason when the receivers were going out and throwing with Tua (Tagovailoa), I made sure that I was there as well because like you said, it’s the team thing. The running back can get thrown the ball, too, especially in this offense so it’s something I pride myself in, going out and working with them, learning from them. So that was something I did this offseason.”
(And then quick follow-up if I can, what did you learn or pick up from the receivers as what they helped you this year?) – “Just as far as like when defenses play us, like you said, they play a lot of two-man so a lot of press. So when I get lined up out there if somebody does try to press me, just the footwork, stuff that they go through and the timing of this offense and just learning like if I’ve got an inside route, how to release or how to get this person to do this. Just the intangibles of being a receiver.”
(To your point here, QB Tua Tagovailoa, he finds you often when he’s back in there at quarterback. We’ve been seeing that. What do you see, just changes overall? Not just from your perspective but overall in the offense once he’s back in?) – “I feel like Tua (Tagovailoa) knows the offense from in and out. I feel like ‘T. Stead’ (Terron Armstead) said, he is the perfect guy to be the QB of this offense. Like he said, you have to know so much when it comes to this offense because we’ve got a lot of motions and you’ve got to know a lot of things. Like it’s not easy for somebody just to come in and be like, ‘okay, I can do this’ because it’s not the type of offense we run. But Tua, he comes into this offense, he brings a lot of confidence. He makes our job easy. He makes sure we’re lined up right and if you happen to forget like what you’ve got to know, Tua is able to make sure that he puts you in the right spot.”
(And also with the run game getting going so much in recent games, the last four specifically, interior of the offensive line really looks like it’s playing great. What do you see out of those guys blocking in front of you?) – “They’re doing a tremendous job. Like you said, these past few weeks we’re running the ball well and I see the work that they put in during the week and we just want to keep building and just keep stacking and hopefully we can keep this train moving.”
(I’m looking at your numbers here per carry. You’re 10 carries away from your total from a season ago and we’re just eight games in. So I’m curious, how is your body feeling at this point of the season with obviously a heavier workload and what have you learned about taking care of yourself?) – “My body feels great. Like you said, I pride myself taking care of myself after all the injuries that I had last year so this year I was pretty big on that. I’m always in the training room just trying to stay fresh because like you said, we’ve got a long season ahead of us. We already had our bye week early so from here on out it’s no breaks, so play every week so I just try to make sure my body is ready for the game day.”
(Last thing for you, how would you evaluate your performance overall this year in comparison to where you were last year at this point?) – “Obviously last year as an offense we started off good. This year I feel like we probably, we’re getting better – like you said, each week we try to make sure that we’re getting better than we did last week. But I feel like there’s always more. I feel like I always can do more and that’s something that I pride myself on trying to go in and do better than I did last week. So I feel like for me, I always go to the next week making sure that I try (not) to make the mistakes that I did last week. If it’s like not taking the right aiming point or just any little thing, I always try to judge myself and make sure that I correct it so as we go forward, I feel like this team, we got better from even last week even though we’re going to make sure that we can go into next week and make sure we’re better than we were last week.”
