Cameron Wake – September 28, 2018
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Friday, September 28, 2018
DE Cameron Wake
(Do you get any idea … Obviously you’ve gone from five defensive ends to four. Did you get any idea from Defensive Coordinator Matt Burke or Defensive Line Coach Kris Kocurek whether your snaps will be impacted by it?) – “I think that’s kind of one of those things that depends on how the game goes. We’ll see which way the wind blows and we’ll take it from there.”
(What do you think of DE Jonathan Woodard? He’s been around for a while and you know a lot more about him than we would. We haven’t actually seen him out there.) – “I like him. (He’s a) hard worker, great player, pass rush, play the run, play different positions on both sides. He’s what you want and I think that’s why he’ll be successful.”
(What would a win mean to you guys this week?) – “The same thing it did last week and the week before that and the week before that.”
(What would a win in New England do for you specifically?) – “The same thing a win in New York did for me. It’s just another game. It’s the most important game of the year because it’s the next game. Next week will be the next most important game of the year and the week after that and two weeks ago and so on and so forth. It’s just another game, another opponent. Go out there and do what you’re supposed to do and get another win.”
(You came into Miami after 2008, the last time you guys won there. They had the Wildcat on that team. What do you remember about that team coming in there?) – “Was that 2009? That was a long time ago. Not too many specifics. I don’t even think about last week let along 10 years ago.”
(Do you think you guys have played the Patriots well the last two years with Head Coach Adam Gase?) – “Was it split?”
(Split last year, lost both in 2016. One was the game up there in 2016 you guys lost by a touchdown.) – “You guys are making me go into my memory banks. If we win, we played well; if we didn’t, we didn’t. To be honest, I couldn’t care less and I’m sure they don’t care about what happened 10 years ago or three years ago. It’s going to be Sunday afternoon is what matters or doesn’t matter. What happened two years ago, five or 10 or 20 … It’s play by play. You’ve got to win the play. You’ve got to win the day. That’s all I’m focused on.”
(Have you talked much with the guys you got form them? WR Danny Amendola and RB Brandon Bolden, have you gotten any insight from them?) – “No, not really. To be honest, maybe the DBs, maybe some coaches want to figure out some philosophies or scheme; but where I play, there’s a guy between me and my destination. He’s going to do his best to stop me from getting there. Aside from maybe wondering which way he’s going or how he might change a play or whatever, that doesn’t help me as much as doing my job. I always feel like I don’t care what you’re going to do, if I come punch you in the mouth, I win. I’m not reacting to you. You should be reacting to me. If I come off and I’m aggressive and I attack, now you have to respond. If I do it the other way around, I feel like I’m at a disadvantage. Big picture, sure. I’d love to get the philosophy on that; but at the end of the day, his hand’s in the ground and so is mine, and I’m going to attack you and let you figure out what the hell to do about it instead of me trying to figure out what you’re going to do.”
(What are your thought on the NFL’s emphasis on these roughing calls?) – “How much time do we have? We don’t have enough time. I can do a whole monologue on that. It’s sad, obviously. I don’t think it’s a secret that the league is concerned about player safety. It just depends on what players. As a defensive player, there is so much that’s available for someone to do to me that I cannot do to someone else. If it’s player safety, everybody should be safe, not just certain players. It should be everyone.”
(I know you guys just came for an NFLPA meeting. Is there anything they can do to emphasize that defensive linemen are just as important?) – “No. My knees don’t mean anything. My helmet, my head doesn’t mean anything. If you look at football, you obviously see what happens. I think it’s silly for anybody to say we care about all players, but you can do certain thing to certain players at certain times. It’s almost silly if a quarterback is running the ball, how the rules change. Now he’s a running back and you can do anything you want, but now he’s a quarterback and you have to stop doing certain things. It’s not fair, but life isn’t fair right?”
(How much are you thinking at this point as you approach the quarterback of how do I land on this guy?) – “Just play football and let them figure it out.”
(So you’re just going to do the same thing? If you smash the guy with all of your body weight, if it happens that way then so be it?) – “If it happens, it’s football. At that point, then I … In the history of football, as a defender, I’m assuming you’re trying to provide energy to that player. Now I’m supposed to sacrifice myself in other to save or protect him.”
(At a bare minimum, hesitate to consider…) – “I land on myself, don’t land on the player. Because I’m running. The ground is there. The ground’s not going to move. I haven’t seen that happen yet. (laughter) So somebody is going to hit the ground. Either I’m going to land on him or I’m going to land on myself. It’s just don’t hurt the quarterback. You? Whatever. But the quarterback, leave them alone.”
(Do you think it’s a lost cause to try to make football safer in general?) – “Well, I think it’s an uphill battle. I think the crowd likes the violence. You see plays on TV, you see big hits, you see the ooo’s and the ahh’s and they like that. That’s what I’m sure helps drive ratings. So do touchdowns (and) scoring.”
(Everything except what you do.) – “Right. (laughter) So if I’m … How do you make a violent sport not violent if that’s what puts people in the seats and so on and so forth? I don’t know. Do people want to watch flag football? You’d have to ask the masses. But I play defense and from the day I touched the football field, it was to punish whoever has the ball – quarterbacks included. But now, that’s not part of the game. It’s gently assist him to the ground. But the running back, you can just destroy him. Receivers, if they’re not defenseless, you can destroy them too. But everybody else? I’m getting cut and rolled up and hit late.”
(Beyond any improvements to what players wear, should efforts just stop to try to make the game safer because it takes something out of the game?) – “Well that (question) would go to the fan base. You as a football (fan), would you want to see a big hit? The human body is not made for big hits. I can guarantee you that. It’s not. So if you take two human beings and smash them into each other, something’s going to give. That’s unsafe. If NFL fans don’t want to see big hits, sure. We could make it a very different game. If they don’t want to see a quarterback on the ground, it could be a very different game. But I just feel like – and it’s not just football – just tell me. Excuse my language, but don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. Just tell me, ‘Listen, we’re going to protect quarterbacks differently. We’re going to protect running backs or receivers or defensive players.’ Just be blunt about it. Not ‘we care about your safety,’ because you don’t care about my safety. You care about some people’s safety. My knees mean just as much to my family and my ability to play and provide just as (Ryan) Tannehill’s does. I can’t understand that his are more important than mine.”
(Is this especially on your mind because you lost somebody to this rule? That you’ve seen a guy – another veteran in the league – that might not only be season-ending but to have that kind of injury means that could be it for DE William Hayes.) – “I hope not. I had a season-ending injury a few years ago.”
(It’s serious though.) – “Oh, it is. I’ve been there and I’ve had the same thing said about me, so I hope to see (Hayes) again. It’s just that overall theme of saying one thing and not necessarily doing it. It’s an interesting time that we live in. That’s what it is and you try to do your best to conform, but at the end of the day, it’s football. There’s only so much that you can change. Even speaking to some of the guys in the back end, that’s even more of a thin line. You have receivers running 20 miles per hour and you’ve got safeties running 20 miles per hour. Literally, a millisecond or a nanosecond is probably more realistic that angles change, things happen and you’re trying to make a play just like he is. But we’re defenders, so we’re the ones who are wrong, not the offensive players.”
(This might sound funny but does there need to be a subdivision union of defensive players to make this case to the league? Someone to speak for defensive players and say ‘Look, a quarterback should not be valued above defensive players when it comes to health.’) – “That would be great but name someone who would agree with you that’s not a defensive player. (laughter)”
(It would take a lot of big-name defensives players like yourself making that case publicly.) – “I see your Ace and I raise you the entire quarterback brigade and owner brigade. At what point, how many defensive players do you need to trump a quarterback and an owner?”
(It’s a helpless cause.) – “It is, but at the same (time), I’m still trying to get a sack. We’re just an unstoppable force (meets) an immovable object, because trust me, we’re trying to get there. (When I say) we, I’m talking about all defensive players. What do you do? Quarterbacks are defenseless all of the time. When am I defenseless? A league rule, when is a defensive end defenseless? I get cut, I get hit, I get chipped, I get hit in the head. It doesn’t matter. But as a quarterback, don’t hit him in the knee, don’t hit him in the head, don’t hit him too early, don’t hit him too late, don’t lay on him, don’t land on him. Flags, I guess.”
