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Darren Rizzi – October 23, 2018 Download PDF version

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Associate Head Coach/Special Teams Coordinator Darren Rizzi

(We’ve been looking a lot at the three practice squad wide receivers, Isaiah Ford, Malcolm Lewis and Leonte Carroo. I’m curious what you can tell us about what any of those guys might be able to contribute on special teams if they’re activated for Thursday’s game?) – “Obviously, I have a good background on all three guys. All of them have been trained in our system. It’s nice to have practice squad guys you have at least trained and been part of the last couple of years. That part is good. They’ve been a part of our system, they know our calls. All three of those guys have been trained in just about every phase. The nice thing is none of them are rookies. They’ve all been here for a couple years. Some have more experience than others. Obviously, Malcolm really just got here recently, but he was with us last year. With Carroo and Ford, those guys have been with us now for a couple of years and they’ve played in the system and all of that. My point is those guys have all trained throughout, they’ve all been ready for this moment if they’re called up and they’re ready to go. As I’ve said many times before, one of the things I’m tasked with the most is getting all of those guys ready to play. That’s an ongoing process, that’s not just because guys get hurt or guys get injured and guys need to step up. They’re always kind of waiting for this and those guys are always in ready mode and always training and preparing as if they’re going to play. I’m comfortable with whoever we bring up and we’ll kind of see what happens here in the next couple of days, but all three of those guys are ready to go.”

(Obviously this is not your first rodeo on a Thursday night travel game. Why is that a difficult assignment – Thursdays and traveling to the Thursday night game?) – “It’s even more of it, no question. We’ve definitely been down this road before. I’ll be a master of the obvious. Number one, obviously it’s a really short week, so having to travel along, that makes it a little more difficult, no doubt. I do like the approach we’re taking this year in terms of kind of turning the page right away and getting onto the next game and getting out here and kind of putting the last one behind us. I think one of the things you can do on a short week is kind of get lost with all the stuff that’s going on. You really want to stay focused on the task at hand. Believe it or not, traveling can actually help with the process in terms of eliminating distractions. I think that’s one of the things we’re trying to do with this trip getting out here early, kind of keeping the mindset on the game. Sometimes, believe it or not, when you’re home there can be more distractions and things like that, so getting out here is a good thing. It’s obviously tough on the guys from a physical standpoint. There’s no doubt about that. They don’t get the recovery days. I can speak specifically about the kickers and punters. On a normal week for them, those guys are taking Monday and Tuesday completely off and then they usually go Wednesday, then take a day off and things like that. Everybody’s rhythm is a little bit messed up in terms of recovery. Not just specials, everybody across the board. That obviously is a difficult task. Then certainly the mental part, the game planning part. They have to do the same thing. Getting on and moving on and getting the game plan in – everything is accelerated. I personally believe the mental part to guys, who have played in the league long enough, have grown accustomed to doing these short weeks than for the newer guys. I think it’s much tougher on the body than people give it credit for. It’s really tough for these guys to play a game Sunday, have to travel today then play another game on Thursday. That’s a lot for the body to take. My hat’s off to these guys that do it. Obviously, from a physical standpoint, it’s very demanding, so that’s certainly a difficult task.”

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