Austin Jackson – November 19, 2020
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Thursday, November 19, 2020
T Austin Jackson
(Do you feel totally back from a physical and rhythm standpoint to where you were before the foot injury?) – “Yes, I do. I’ve had a good amount of time to get ready. I’m still working on my treatment.”
(I always love hearing your perspective on technique and matchups and things like that. So what do you have to do this week to handle Broncos OLB Bradley Chubb? What’s his best move you have to look out for and what’s the best route for you to get him blocked consistently?) – “He’s a bigger type of athlete. Last week we had Melvin (Ingram) who’s also an athlete but doesn’t have as much size to him. I’d say Bradley Chubb is pretty close to as good an athlete, but he also has some size and speed on him as well, so I would say biggest thing for him would be just to get down the middle of him. Try to center myself up with him so I can be in a good position to react to any move – to any initial or counter move because he will throw a counter move after his initial rush.”
(I’m actually not a big pet guy.. . Is that a dog with a squeaky toy or something?) – “Yeah, that’s my dog sitting right here just happy I’m home from practice. (laughter)”
(What’s your dog’s name and what kind of dog do you have?) – “He just ran away, otherwise I’d show you. His name’s Pluto and he’s a Cane Corso. ‘Pluto’ like the ex-planet. I know it’s not technically a planet now, but yeah. (laughter)”
(My football question – Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey says QB Tua Tagovailoa has a “everything is going to be all right” mindset kind of approach to life, which is a good approach to have. What do you think when you hear that and can you think of an example when you saw it in action?) – “Yeah, I’d say that’s kind of the model going into every game because every team has ups and downs in every game. You could start off the game 21-0, but if you don’t do your job in those three quarters the rest of the game, you could walk out of the game 50-21. You never know. So I think by that, it just means just be calm and just focus on trying to control and play the next play.”
(Do you pay any attention at all to how Browns T Jedrick Wills Jr. and Buccaneers T Tristan Wirfs and Giants T Andrew Thomas are doing? And is it at all meaningful for you considering you were the last of that group drafted although still obviously a good draft pick to be considered better than them, as good as them this year?) – “No, I wouldn’t say I watch them to judge myself, make myself or better or worse off of how they play. Obviously any athlete, any competitor, wants to be the best at the position regardless – not just out of them, but out of the whole league. So when I watch them, it’s nice to see guys that I’ve known for a while compete, doing different things, seeing different things, helping me learn different things. And I just enjoy watching the game, so I do like to watch those guys, but not in that context.”
(We just had S Brandon Jones on and I got a chance to ask him about the coldest game he ever played in being a Texas guy. I know you going from Phoenix to USC now to Miami, you kind of hit the jackpot as far as where you’ve lived your whole life. It’s supposed to be 40 degrees in Denver so kind of a break for late November, but have you played in a game colder than 40 degrees and what’s your thoughts just on cold weather football?) – “Pregame sucks in cold weather football, I’ll tell you that. Before you get a real sweat, (laughter) it’s tough. But once you start playing, you don’t really realize how cold it is outside. And I would say – this will be my third time playing in Colorado and both times were pretty cold, but I think the coldest I’ve ever been in was Notre Dame last year. I think it was like late 20s, early 30s when we played them by the end of the game, so that was pretty cold.”
(I’ve got to ask you about Pluto, so tell us what Pluto is like. I’m not quite sure – is this like a big guy with a really tiny dog walking down the street or is Pluto a big dog? And what’s the craziest thing Pluto does?) – “He’s not a little dog, nah. He should be a pretty big-size dog, not like Doberman length or St. Bernard length, but he should be a pretty big dog. But he’s brindle. His color is brindle, so he’s got – I don’t want to say stripes but these deep brown ridges in his black coat. And he’s a pretty funny guy all around. What’s the funniest thing he does? He does a lot of funny things. He’s just always running around. He likes to act like my cat, so my cat will kind of jump up on the windowsill on the back of the couch where that hard part is and so he’ll try to jump up there and act like he’s my cat. (laughter) That’s pretty funny to me.”
(Can you show him to us? Can we see Pluto? Can we see your cat? Can you pick them up and grab them for us?) – “I actually just kicked them out because they were stressing me out during this meeting. (laughter) So they’re probably all downstairs.”
(Maybe next time.) – “Next time, yeah, if they’re acting right.”
