Christian Wilkins – August 31, 2020
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Monday, August 31, 2020
DT Christian Wilkins
(Since you’re wearing that Vote t-shirt, when your playing career is over – hopefully not for a long time – in the future, are you going to go into politics or what?) – “I’ve thought about it. I’m going to give it some more thought once the time is up. I think I’d do a decent job in politics, so we’ll see. We’ll see. Maybe (I’ll be) the mayor of Miami or something like that. We’ll see.”
(You’ve obviously had tragedy in your life. You had someone close to you pass. I was wondering if you’ve said anything to QB Ryan Fitzpatrick the last few days to lift his spirits.) – “Yeah, of course. Ryan is a guy who I have a lot of respect for and who I love. He’s like a big brother – a lot older brother – to me. (laughter) He’s been a great friend and just a great guy to be around – a great leader for us. Really since Day 1, we’ve hit it off and he’s someone that I love and care for a lot. I got to meet his sons and his kids and we’re pretty cool, so really I just reached out to him. I shot him a text (just saying) I kind of was just there for him and let him know that. I let him know that I’m there for him and I love him, and things like that.”
(I wanted to ask you about tackling. In the sport of football, it’s pretty much the most important thing you guys do – make sure you get the opponent on the ground. Let me see if I have this right: since the last game of last season, you haven’t been able to really tackle someone right? How hard is that? How do you sort of simulate that? Have you been able to tackle anybody for real?) – “Not really. That’s one of the challenges, one of the biggest things with all of the adversity we’re going through this year. With the new guidelines and everything, it’s tough. We really haven’t been able to tackle anyone or go fully live; but we’ve done a lot of drills and a lot of things to kind of simulate that. Really, just even in practice, taking our proper angles, thudding guys up, getting a good pop but just not bringing guys all of the way to the ground. If you practice the right way, hopefully it’ll carry over pretty well into the game.”
(What will make this defense different and look more like the hybrid defense that Head Coach Brian Flores wants to implement?) – “Well, really a big thing is we’ve got a lot of guys who can do a lot of different things. You don’t really need to – we’ve just got guys with a lot of versatility, so we can do a lot of different things. From a scheme standpoint, everyone we’ve got can play multiple positions, whether they’re on the d-line, (line)backers or in the secondary. I think that’s really important. It’ll add a lot of versatility to us and make us, hopefully, a pretty solid defense.”
(In what ways is Head Coach Brian Flores’ approach with the team different here in Year 2, would you say?) – “Coach is just – he’s still the same old coach. He does a great job every day. He’s just a guy you can look to who you know is going to bring it every day. You know he’s going to have it every day and challenge us as a team. I wouldn’t really say his approach is different; but I would just say – it’s weird. Like you can see growth with players and you can kind of see growth with a coach going from Year 1 to Year 2. I’m not saying he was a bad coach or anything last year or had many flaws or anything, but you could still kind of see growth and it’s good to see that, and just his confidence and everything. He’s a great leader for us to follow.”
(I’d like to follow up a little bit more regarding Head Coach Brian Flores. I think the ideal situation for a lot of football coaches is to have that tunnel vision where it’s football, football, football. But with Brian, obviously there’s been a lot of things going on that he has dealt with, and he’s not afraid it seems – he’s not afraid to talk to you guys about real-world situations, as we saw last week when you had that team meeting out on the field. As a player, what does that do for you when you see a coach who is willing to go beyond the bounds of just football and talk to you about those things?) – “Yeah, it’s definitely – it’s interesting because I feel like you don’t get that too often at this level, at the pro level. So it’s great to know you’ve got a coach who’s in your corner, that has your back, that’s very supportive of you as people and as men, not just as players. You can tell he really wants the best for us as men, on and off the field, so that’s great. I just kind of feel like we all have more respect for him ultimately as a man, person and as a coach too, as well.”
(It’s likely that a rookie guard will start for you. How much have you worked against G Solomon Kindley and T Robert Hunt so far in this camp, and thoughts on those two?) – “I think both of those guys are pretty good. I think we did pretty well getting the right guys in here, and those guys have been competing and working hard every day. I could definitely see that they both have great potential and if they keep their head on the straight and narrow, they’ll be pretty good in this league.”
(You’re 13 days away from the opener and you guys are kind of in this phase of end of training camp, starting to transition into preparing for an opponent. I’m curious for a player like you, when do you start to kind of make that switch to saying you’ve got to prepare for a certain opponent and a certain guy across from you?) – “I feel like right now until like training camp fully breaks, I’m still locked into training camp and competing against our offense every day and trying to improve myself, work on my technique, polish up those things. Then once camp officially breaks and is over, then I’ll start focusing more and locking in completely into the game plan and focusing on the opponents. I’ve even started to do a little bit of that now, just to kind of get some familiarity; but not too much. I haven’t fully delved into that. But definitely come this weekend, I’ll probably start looking into New England.”
