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Cameron Wake – November 17, 2017 Download PDF version

Friday, November 17, 2017

DE Cameron Wake

(What’s the biggest thing the defense needs to do to get back on track?) – “Consistency, playing together and playing for the full whatever the game is – 60 minutes, it might be more. It can’t be one series on, one series off, and it can’t be just the DBs or just the linebackers. It has to be cohesively and consistent.”

(Head Coach Adam Gase talked about there’s been some miscommunication between each unit of the defense. Did you see that and what’s your take on that?) – “Yes. I think, again, I spoke to you guys after the game and any time you have free runners or wide open players, that is usually because of somebody not communicating or somebody being misaligned or having a mental error or whatever it may be. I think that’s something that, as I said just now, playing together, all phases have to work together. On defense, it’s not a one-play game, whereas on offense, you can have a couple of bad series and have one play and it’s a touchdown, and have a couple of more bad series and a touchdown. The opposite is true on defense. You have to play the entire game, cross your Ts, dot your Is and do everything you’re supposed to all game.”

(So how do you improve upon that?) – “You’ve just got to get on the same page and trust the guys next to you that ‘Hey, if I’m here, you’re there. If I’m there, you’re here,’ and trusting that it’s going to be there. If I try to be here and there, obviously the guys on offense will make you wrong. Trusting in one another and obviously communicating where we’re supposed to be.”

(How much easier is playing defense with a lead?) – “How many leads have we had? I don’t know much about that; but I think the way I am, the scoreboard is kind of way in the back of your mind. You’re just focusing on winning this play, winning this next play and winning the play after that. When the end of the game comes, then you figure out what’s going on as far as the scoreboard. I put my head down and worry about this next play and try not to focus on anything else outside of that.”

(This would have been the bye week, so how do the bodies feel and how has the plan worked the last couple of weeks with some strategic days off?) – “We had our bye week already, the first week of the season, so that’s been my mentality. Other than the hurricane, I enjoyed my bye week as much as I could. From then on, it’s been take it week by week. Our bodies feel like we’ve played, how many games? Eight?”

(Nine.) – “Nine games. That’s what my body feels like, but that’s what everybody’s body feels like nine games into the season, so there’s no sympathy requested, nor will there be any given.”

(Do you feel like the defensive line, as a unit, has played up to expectations, up to your expectations?) – “Absolutely not.”

(In what way to you feel like it’s not been enough?) – “Every way. I don’t feel like we’ve gotten enough pressure on the quarterback. I feel like we probably should have more TFLs. I feel like there’s probably more production from that unit and I don’t think you would ask anybody on that line if that’s been good enough from us. I may be a little biased, but I feel like we control a lot of what’s going on, because we can affect the running game and we can affect the passing game. With the kind of guys we have in there, our expectations are probably higher than most, so we still have some work to do.”

(How big is the gap between your expectations for the line and reality of what you’ve seen?) – “My expectations are heavy. They’re big, really big. I expect every player on the field to be making game-changing plays every week, because we can. When you look at the names of the guys we have, I couldn’t see anybody expecting anything less. We’ve got to work.”

(You guys are thoughtful guys, I’m sure you wonder why this is. So why do you think it is?) – “If I had the answer to the why, we would no longer be…”

(In this situation.) – “Exactly. I would have fixed that. If I knew why the roof was leaking, I would have fixed it. It could be a lot of different things, but to me, there’s only one solution to fix the unknown problems and that’s harder work, more attention to detail and again, playing together. That’s what we’ve been working on this past week. That’s something that, obviously, in the past couple of weeks we haven’t done as well as we should have. I think moving forward, if we’re going to be successful, that’s the only solution.”

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