Alec Ingold – January 1, 2024
Monday, January 1, 2024
FB Alec Ingold
(This team has been good at shaking off losses. Did you sense any hangover today over yesterday among the guys?) – “No. I think we’ve been trained for this. I think we’ve been preparing all year for this and one thing, one of the team rules – you guys probably hear it all the time – is adversity is an opportunity. And for me, going back to my upbringing, I was taught that in life, you’re either walking into a storm, you’re in a storm or you’re walking out of one. That’s life. It’s a series of storms. And this team and this season, I mean, you could feel like you’re in a storm. And the trust and calm and confidence and courage that you have in that storm throughout the tough times – the highs and the lows, the tough weather, the adversity – you grow from that. You find solace and confidence and courage to put yourself back out there because you have strength in numbers, because you have a team, because you’re trained for it, because you’re created to play this game. And when you get a bunch of guys that don’t hesitate, don’t blink in the storm, they trust each other. That’s why you can bounce back from a lot of things that we’ve bounced back from this year. So I think it all goes into how we’ve been trained, how we’ve come together and it’s another test, and it’s another opportunity for us to learn from whatever happened yesterday and use that to move forward in the storm. I don’t want this storm to end anytime soon. I want six more weeks of this thing. And I think if you think that way, you embrace it, you lean into it, that’s where you can find that wild confidence of like, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are. You have the courage to put yourself back out there.”
(Wanting the storm to run through Hard Rock Stadium?) – “One hundred percent.”
(How much of the focus is it to make sure that happens for at least two games in the playoffs?) – “Yeah, I mean, it’s huge and that’s the goal. You get an opportunity to go play basically another playoff game. And that’s the approach that you can have to play for the AFC East, to play a Buffalo Bills team that we’re really familiar with that we haven’t gotten to play since however long ago, and a lot has changed since then. So to be able to use this game as everything that you need moving forward into that playoffs, you don’t want to you don’t want to let off the gas. It’s not time for that. It’s Week 18. You want to play your best football. I’ve talked about this multiple times in here. In December and January, you want to play your best football and to get another opportunity to do that with the guys in the room like, man, sign me up. I’m excited. I can’t wait. I’m just going to be waiting all day for that Sunday night football game.”
(When that schedule came out, did you get a sense that Week 18 against the Bills was going to have a lot riding on it?) – “You’re saying at the beginning of the year?”
(Yeah, when you see the Bills the last game, did you feel like this game was going to be important, a lot riding on it probably?) – “Yeah, any time you’ve got the Bills, it’s a great time. It’s a division rivalry. We played them three times last year. You get to play them a couple times this year and that’s what’s guaranteed so when you look at the schedule and you see where the division games are and you get one of those guys late in the season, it’s a great opportunity for the guys to show the growth from the entire season and put it all out there the last regular season game.”
(In both the Baltimore and Buffalo games, the two games that got lopsided on you guys, we heard the term pressing a lot from the offense in terms of the game kind of got wonky on the defensive side, you guys pressed and mistakes happened, the score gets to be what it is. How do you approach removing the idea of pressing? How do you attack not getting yourself into that situation in the future?) – “That’s a good question. I think when you talk about pressing, it sounds like a lot of guys really trying and caring about making every single play. And when you are allowing the game to come to you, when you are relying on your fundamentals, technique, playing smart, fast, physical, elite technique football, pressing isn’t in one of those key words, right? I think it’s just a lot of guys that really care about ball, really care about each other. And then just having that ultimate trust that when it’s your time and your number’s called, that’s your play to make. I think that’s what it’s going to come down to, is the fundamentals and in trusting one another to be able to put out good stuff and good execution.”
(We saw LB Bradley Chubb get injured when I guess you could say the game was out of hand. What are your thoughts on staying out there on the field and in those situations as a starter? Do you want to be out there or would you rather sit and take the work off your body?) – “I come from a place where the opportunity of a lifetime is only there for the lifetime of the opportunity. The NFL is not for long, right? I’m five years in and I take every single day, every single rep, every single practice, I live with that and I give it my all. So I think the standard here that’s been set is you want to play as much as you can. You want every single opportunity to be – that next play is going to be the best play of the day, best play of the year, and every single opportunity to be at where your feet are. So I don’t think anybody here takes the opportunity to play, to execute, to be there for one another, lightly. And I think that’s the standard we’ve set. The injury rate in the league is 100 percent. You feel for Bradle and all the circumstances that are because of that situation, that circumstance, your heart is ripped for that guy. Such a great year, such a great leader. But every guy in the room, now it’s another guy you play for. It’s another person that embodies what it means to be a Dolphin and every time we get that opportunity to strap up, you’re playing with that training, you’re playing with that guy with you. And I think that’s the strength in numbers.”
(Did you see the Ravens do anything different adjusting to your motion pre-snap?) – “Yeah I mean obviously the Ravens are a really well-coached team. Zach Orr is their linebacker coach and I played with his little brother Chris Orr, who I know very, very well. And any time you have in-game adjustments, that’s the chess match that goes on in the game. So adjustments are made and obviously they made them throughout the game of motions and snap points and defensive fronts. And that’s everything that you train for. That’s why you watch tape. That’s why you prepare so much. That’s why we’re in the building all day, every day, all week. So I think whatever a defense wants to put out there, whatever play they want to call, we got to execute with it. Just rolling with those adjustments as best we can is going to be a challenge for us moving forward. But like I said earlier, you lean into that. You want it. That’s why you play ball.”
(How different is the offense from I think it was Week 4 when you played the Bills versus to where you guys are at now?) – “That’s a good question. I think any time earlier in the year, especially September football, it’s going to be good weather. You’re still trying to figure out who’s going to be the playmakers, what types of techniques we’re using, what plays you get to call and the amount of wrinkles that get added throughout it. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of our fundamentals, our techniques are the same. The assignments might look a little bit different, but I think you build confidence in the amount of reps that you go through and I don’t think anybody’s taken reps, just out there just doing whatever they want, right? Every single rep is intentional. It builds towards something. It’s purposeful. So I think that’s what we get the opportunity to do Week 18, is show all of that intentional work and how it’s grown throughout the year, to have an identity on offense and to play to our skill set.”
