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Alec Ingold – December 14, 2023 Download PDF version

Thursday, December 14, 2023

FB Alec Ingold

(I was talking to CB Jalen Ramsey after the game and he said that not having practice reps with some of the players out there affected the game. For you, how important are these practice reps to carry over to Sunday?) – “I love practice. I love practice reps. I’m a big body mechanic, I need to go through everything (guy). It’s a stress mentally to be able to put yourself in that practice field. You have to be so intentional and detailed oriented and it’s hard. It’s hard with long days, but choose your hard. Stress yourself out during the week, during practice, get the reps that you can and the body is going to heal up a little bit, and then you go out there on Sunday you get to cut it loose. You can either live with the stress in the meantime, or you can live with the regret later. I think a lot of us would rather prepare as hard as we possibly can, whether it’s mentally or physically and then spend Sunday with your brothers.”

(When you think back to some of the most difficult losses you’ve ever had to experience, what stands out in how you were able to overcome that?) – “I’ve been a part of some gut-wrenching losses in my time – five years in the league now. I think it’s just when you talk about process – and we talk about process all the time, being really high after a win or really low after a loss – throughout it, you never want to be conditioned to be ok with losing. That’s never in your DNA as a competitor. You can never let that slip in. But at the same time, you have to be able to take tough lessons. You have to take your medicine. You have to learn how to buy into the process that the coaches are talking about, that the players are talking about, and say win, lose or draw, we didn’t play our best game. When you’re in a results-based industry and it’s black and white, there is a whole lot of gray in that film. If you can continue to condition yourself to look towards improvement and not get sick of it, not get tired of it, I think that’s what gives you the best chance to win at the end of the day.”

(In some ways, is a short and tough week like this late in the season easier considering you played the Jets recently?) – “I wouldn’t say easier. A week like this with a lot more mental load than physical, is probably a lot more common. A lot more injuries happen throughout the season. So it’s a part of the year in December, the good December teams have to practice well. One of the first times we were watching practice, Coach (Mike) McDaniel was showing us how to practice without pads in training camp. He’s like winning teams have to learn how to do this. That’s the process that we’re learning right now is how to practice without pads, how to get your mental reps, turn them into physical reps, and then be able to execute when it comes to game time.”

(Obviously you guys have had success running the ball all season. Number two in yards to game, number one in yards per attempt. How much do you feel you have to convince Head Coach Mike McDaniel to lean on you now especially in these tough December games?) – “I think you inspire the play-caller by your play. I think everyone in the room fully has faith and trust in whatever game plan gets put out there, and you’re going to execute and make whatever play work. Good, bad or indifferent, that’s the way football works, and I think that’s where when we’ve got a guy like Raheem (Mostert), we’ve got a plethora of backs, we’ve got an offensive line that is rotating through what they are rotating through. Whatever we got on Sunday is inspiring the play caller, it’s inspiring each other, to be able to go out and execute that way. I think one of the best parts of this last Monday night’s game was the adjustments the offensive line was able to make, the players were able to make throughout the game. We got a lot of different looks and you saw a lot of runs that might have been similar in the first quarter versus the fourth. You can see guys hitting different lanes and being able to have those explosive runs. I think it’s all about showing up on game day with that good week of prep, and then inspiring one another in that run, that tenacity, that mindset, to say we’re going to run, we’re going to do it, we’re going to stick with it and succeed with it.”    

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