Cameron Wake – October 6, 2017
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Friday, October 6, 2017
DE Cameron Wake
(Head Coach Adam Gase was saying yesterday what a great job you’ve done setting the edge, not only doing it on your own in the run game, but showing others how to do it as well. Is this as well, do you think, as you’ve played the run? You’ve played the run well in the past, but is this, do you think, as well as you’ve done it?) – “What do you mean? I’m a pass rusher. I don’t play the run. (laughter)”
(Well, it’s something that’s asked of you as a starter for years. Is this as well as you’ve done it?) – “I’ve played a lot of snaps so it’s going to be hard to try to merge all of those years together, especially in this old brain. Literally, I take it play by play. Whatever is asked of me, I do my best to do that thing, whatever it is. If it’s setting the edge, setting the edge; getting to the quarterback, do that; drop into coverage, I’ve done that as well. I just literally take it one play at a time and if I do my job on that play, I consider it a win for me and move on to the next.”
(How much of a pride factor though is stopping the run for you, knowing that people think of you foremost as a pass rusher?) – “I just have a lot of pride about me in all aspects of the game, whether it’s stopping the run, dropping into coverage, getting to the quarterback. I have pride in getting my job done. I’ve long, long ago stopped caring about what people thought of me or labeled me as – many, many moons ago. Like I said, it’s play by play and it’s between me and the guys that I play with and the coaching staff as far as what that role is going to be, how I attack it and whether it’s a success or not.”
(How would you describe the mood at practice this week?) – “Urgent, I guess. Is that a good word? I think everybody realizes that we only get so many swings at the bat. You can’t just let any of these slip through your fingers. Obviously hindsight is 20/20 – could have, should have, would have – but in this game, you don’t have 80 games or whatever it is. You get 16 chances, hopefully more. Every one of them is important. You never want to be – we’ve been there before – where you’re looking back 10 weeks from now saying ‘If we would have this, then hopefully we could have … We should have beat this team, but we didn’t.’ You’ve got to treat each game like that’s the most important game and this next game coming up is the most important. I feel like we have a good matchup and things should play in our favor but it won’t unless we go out there and do our job.”
(Obviously you never want to rule out a situation where Titans QB Marcus Mariota is questionable. You don’t know if he’s going to play. How do you prepare for two quarterbacks? Do you have to go into it with two different game plans or two different approaches?) – “I don’t think so. I feel like if you can fit into a medium, you can fit into a large. I’ll say it that way. You prepare, and if you have to scale back, you have to scale back. You wouldn’t want to do it the other way. You don’t want to say, ‘I’m going to be a large and now I’m trying to fit into a medium.’ It wouldn’t work that way, so you set your game plan as such that most eventualities are taken care of, and if you have to cut off a few, better safe than sorry. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
(For lack of a better word, is it annoying to not know which quarterback you’re facing?) – “Not at all. (For) me, personally, there is a blank spot in the backfield. I will get there no matter who’s standing in the spot, that’s just the way I look at it. Now of course, when somebody has the ball or there are certain plays and things like that, you have to adjust the game plan a little bit; but at the end of the day, it’s nameless, faceless entities that you try to destroy every chance you get.”
(A lot of times rookies, there are just these little epiphanies when something finally clicks for them. Have you seen any little breakthroughs like that for DE Charles Harris recently?) – “That’d probably be a better question to ask him; but I’ve been around him, obviously, for many months now and I feel like he’s tremendously gifted. I feel like he has – and I kind of look back – I don’t want to age myself but I look back (to) when I came in and had so many veterans to look for and ask questions. I think he’s kind of in that same situation where he has many, many years; many, many snaps, Pro Bowls, a coaching staff (around him). We’ve got basically a whole host of wisdom around him that he can always find an answer to any question he has. He’s been a guy to take advantage of that and I think it’s also showing up on the field, as well. I think last game was probably a game that most people say was his best game yet, and I’m obviously looking forward to more in the future.”
(So far, this defense has been far better at stopping the run compared to last year. The main reason for that is what?) – “I’m in there stopping the run, what do you mean? (Laughter) I don’t think it is one thing. Defense and offense are always talked about and how different they are; but on defense you have to play … If there’s 90 snaps in a game, you have to play, especially to stop the run, 90 snaps, everybody in the right place, you have this gap, gap, gap, gap. That’s the only way you stop the run – consistent, cohesive, together football. On defense, if you have two plays out of all 90 that you don’t do the right thing, a 60-yard run, your run defense is completely out the window. Offense is the complete opposite. You could have two bad quarters and come and have two great quarters and at the end of the day, you look like you won the day. It all comes down to consistency, playing together, and it has to be play in and play out. One play can ruin the day for you and change field position, and put points on the board, all of those things. To say one thing, it would be very hard; but I think it’s each guy knowing that, ‘This is my job to do,’ just trust the guy, he’s going to be in his job. (If) you do that over and over again, you build a resume over the course of a few games and you look back and can be proud of yourself.”
(What do you know about LB Rey Maualuga and what do you think he could potentially add to this defense?) – “We probably shared the field a couple of times. Physical force is probably the best couple of adjectives I could use to describe him. He’s obviously a veteran in the game, has a lot of wisdom, tough, hard-nose player, and I’m truly glad he’s on our side. I think this probably would be a great week to have a coming out party. I won’t be able to watch, but I’m looking forward to playing beside him”
(Looking at the run game for the Titans and the offensive line and the production that they’ve had, what do you see in them and how do you go about combatting some of the things that they’re able to do?) – “It’s kind of like what I just spoke about. They play well together. The running backs, obviously, know where they need to be, hit the holes, find the open spots, find that guy who’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing. They’ll run hard and they’ll make guys miss and, again, you have to play together as a whole. That one guy. All 10 of us doing something right and one guy is not, they find that guy and they pop it through for a big gain. Again, that’s one of those unstoppable force, immovable object situations, and I like our matchup and I’m looking forward to going out there and getting the job done.”
(Only one team has allowed quarterbacks to have a higher passer rating against you guys. You guys are allowing 70-something percent of passes to be completed. Obviously a lot of that pressure is going to the secondary, but do you guys on the front line take responsibility for what’s going on there?) – “I wholeheartedly agree that any stat that you put you together – whether the passing stat is bad or good – is shared by both the d-line and the secondary. It’s probably inverse as far as most people think about it. I think when there’s a 70-yard pass and it’s a big bomb, that’s probably more the d-line’s issue than the secondary. This is the NFL, these are the best receivers in the world, no one can cover these receivers – I don’t care who it is – for 5 seconds. It’s just impossible. The inverse of that is if the pass is going out in 2 seconds, that’s probably more of a DB issue. I would like to think we share. They’re covering guys, making sure that we can get (to the quarterback) and we’re trying to get there to interrupt the plays. Maybe they’re throwing it too soon, it’s out of place, on the ground, whatever. So it’s shared responsibility, like I said, bad and good. It’s not always going to be on them. It’s not always going to be on us. I think we both play a role.”
