Ereck Flowers – September 17, 2020
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Thursday, September 17, 2020
G Ereck Flowers
(I wanted to get your thoughts on finally getting a home debut in the town that you grew up in, playing your first home game as a Miami Dolphin in Miami.) – “Yeah, it’s great. I mean I’ve played here about three times before, so it probably would’ve been better if I never did; but it’s going to be cool.”
(I guess growing up, what were your thoughts on the Miami Dolphins? What were your thoughts that you might someday be a Miami Dolphin? They didn’t have the greatest amount of success I guess when you were young, but was this a dream for you? Or was simply making the NFL a dream?) – “At first it was making it to the NFL, then you look at your possibilities of going places and you’re like, ‘I would really love to play for them.’ It’s been great. I grew up coming to training camps, going to games from Pop Warner – you know how they set it up where Pop Warner (teams) get to go to games so I’ve always followed the Dolphins. It’s really a dream come true for me. Sometimes when you’re here, you don’t really sit down and think about it. Probably my family more so than me is realizing what’s going on.”
(First I want to know what Pop Warner team you played for but my more important question is when you look at how the rookies performed, when you went over the film, what did you say to them? Because you’ve kind of served as a mentor for them all.) – “I played at Ives Estates. When I watched this film, I kind of knew going into the game that this was the first time we were going to play, it was the first time – I kind of know how it goes the first time. You don’t know what to expect as far handling game situations and all of that stuff. I thought they were really confident in going out; but I think as a whole, we’re just really trying to get better and the things that we’ve got to work on. I kind of take it as, ‘ok this is where we started; ok this is where we’ve got to see improvement on the next week.’ So really we’ve just been trying to emphasize what we did wrong that game and try to fix it going into this game, and being cleaner.”
(Obviously one sack allowed but how would you assess that game?) – “I guess it all depends on your standard. I want us to be really good, so I think we could have played a lot better; but I’m not mad because I know that we’ve never played together. I’m just looking to get better every week. Just coming out this week, ‘ok we’ve got everything out, this is a new game, we’ve worked on what we need to work on,’ and really just try to show some improvement every week and try to get better. I know you can’t just go first game and be great. It’s really just trying to get better and just keep getting better, work on what you need to work on and keep getting better out there as the year goes on.”
(I was curious, when you came to camp when you were a kid, do you remember did you get to meet any players? Did you get any autographs?) – “I never really met players. I never really got a chance to – I was just in there. I’ve been in the stands with my dad or at the games. I used to watch Jake Long and all of those dudes, from Ricky Williams and all of those dudes. I used to listen to WQAM in the morning. I’ve always been involved with that. I’ve always followed it and my family too.”
(You’ve had a couple of high school teammates that made it big, right? RB Duke Johnson was on that team? Did you play with CB Xavier Rhodes as well?) – “No, I started playing after (him) but we had Rashad Fenton with the Chiefs. He was younger but he was on that team with Norland. Man, who else? Some dudes transferred after I came. There’s a few of us.”
(In the moment when you were a 16- or 17-year-old kid, everyone has the dream of going to the NFL. But was it a realistic dream do you think at that point?) – “My first couple of years of high school, I was trying to play basketball. I’ve always played football growing up but then I just got kind of into that little basketball groove and then I came back to really just trying to focus on football and leaving those pipe dreams alone. (laughter)”
(What’s your vision for the identity that you want this offensive line to have?) – “For me, I want our identity to be technical. Technical and I would say really more hard-nosed. Physical but technical. The good offensive lines are technical, from hand placements to everything – the combo blocks, the games – just technical. That’s what really wins a matchup is being technical. I want us to go in that direction of just being technical. That’s what would be my perfect envision. Like the Cowboys in those years, they were just super technical – their hands.”
(We were talking about your roots and everything from around here. Do you have any plans to have family or friends at the game on Sunday?) – “Yeah, I have a few. Not too much because of this whole situation, but I guess it kind of saves me money. (laughter) I’ll have a few.”
(I’m wondering, if you have 13,000 fans in there, how many do the ‘Canes usually get or used to get? Is it similar or is that less?) – “It depends on if we’re winning. I remember playing Florida. (laughter) For Florida, it was like – you know what I mean? Then you play like Bethune-Cookman. (laughter) Some guys it was like – if we won, the year we were doing good in the first half, it was looking good and then we went down the drain and people just started watching on TV.”
