Eric Rowe – December 2, 2020
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Wednesday, December 2, 2020
S Eric Rowe
(I have a question for you about Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer. You’ve obviously been with him here for the last couple of years and you had a relationship with him in New England previously. I was just curious if there was maybe one or two things that he does that makes him stand out in a unique way that has helped this Dolphins defense be so productive this season?) – “Yeah, I’ve been with him for – yeah, I would say probably pretty much my career now that I think about it. But yeah, a couple things about him, the attention to detail is really the same as ‘Flo’ (Head Coach Brian Flores). Like him and ‘Flo’ are basically the same person. They have the same mindset, the energy they bring every day, the attention to detail within the defense, any scheme, technique, fundamentals, all that. So really it’s just the consistency since – it would’ve been the spring, but we just had training camp – but since training camp, just the details of everybody’s fundamentals, whatever the scheme is, define things and just consistently executing it.”
(Staying with that theme a little bit, you described what Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer is like in terms of his approach day to day. How would you describe his approach on game day and calling plays, calling formations? How would you describe that?) – “It’s aggressive. He definitely has an aggressive mindset, which I like. I like being the aggressor instead of being passive and kind of just playing back. He wants to dictate what the offense does, so kind of have the defense run the game. With any team, it doesn’t matter; that’s usually the game plan is be aggressive.”
(I wasn’t paying attention to the last question, but I have to ask about CB Nik Needham. I’m not sure if that was asked already. Somebody give me a yes, somebody give a no. Anything? Nik Needham has obviously been a player that’s developed a lot in the last two seasons, also with that pick on Sunday. What can you say about him as a player, the way he’s developed over the last two years and what he does for you guys in that nickel role?) – “From last year, I remember training camp. He was undrafted and he was out there making plays kind of consistently against our offense. That kind of gets you on the radar. I’m like, ‘all right, who is this guy?’ He was undrafted out of El Paso. Not going to lie, when he first came in, he was overweight. He didn’t move too well but he kept making plays. Now fast forward to now, he can play inside, outside. He always has the tough task whether it’s covering like (Jamison) Crowder in the slot. I think this week Tyler Boyd is in the slot. He’s a really good receiver. He’s always up to it, so his development; he’s a key piece of the defense.”
(That’s funny you brought up the overweight because he admitted to that in training camp that he cut out fast food, so maybe that’s something we should all do. I got a question not about the current team, but a couple weeks ago on throwback day, you wore those cleats – Jake Scott, Dick Anderson. Did you know about Jake Scott before you got to the Dolphins? Like growing up around football, was that like someone you modeled or was that someone you learned about and studied when you got to this franchise? If you could just speak on his impact on the Dolphins and you obviously to make those cleats.) – “It was someone I learned (about) when I got signed here and on our wall in our defensive room, it’s got the No-Name Defense and it has Jake Scott, Dick Anderson – it’s a small room, so it’s probably like four or five guys. So when I got here, I was like ‘No-Name Defense, what is that?’ So I studied up and looked it up and I was like, ‘Dick Anderson and Jake Scott, man these two guys were the real deal.’ The stats they had, All-Pro, Pro Bowls, one of them was the Super Bowl MVP. So that’s someone you got to pay homage to. And then I kind of watched a little bit of old film, how they played their game and I was just impressed.”
(What do you make of the Bengals quarterback situation and what sort of opportunities does that present for the defense this week?) – “Yeah, he’s a new guy for this year playing-wise. It’s kind of sad what happened to Joe Burrow. He was off to a really great start to his first year. But it’s kind of how the NFL goes unfortunately – injuries – so whoever is up is up. But Brandon Allen, we’ve got one game film out of him; but he has an arm. He’s an NFL quarterback, so I don’t downplay anybody. If you’re an NFL quarterback, you’re in the league, you can play. We’ve still got to come with it he could pick us apart just like anybody else.”
(You, as a rookie, were able to start all 16 games which is pretty rare. How were you able to do that and how tough was that last month for you?) – “As a rookie?”
(Yeah.) – “Oh no, I didn’t start all 16 games. (laughter)”
(I’m sorry, you played all 16 games, right? You appeared in all 16 games?) – “You can say that. I was on special teams, got a couple snaps here and there. I didn’t really start playing playing until like, the last five games. But if you want to talk about that rookie wall thing – I think that’s where you’re going – yeah, I talked to Brandon (Jones) about it because I hit my wall my second year. That’s when I played all 16 and the playoffs and that’s when I hit it and I was like, ‘oh my God, this wall is real. I’m mentally and physically just out of it.’ But I talked to Brandon about it and tried to give him a couple tips on how to keep it going because December is the most important month of the year for football because everybody is trying to make that run, make that jump; so if you’re going with that, yeah. I wish I played all 16 my rookie year. (laughter)”
(I was curious coming up on Sunday for My Cause, My Cleats, if you’ve got anything you’re wearing and something you want to kind of get the message out on?) – “Yeah, I’m supporting – it’s a group called IJM – International Justice Mission. What they do is they focus on child slavery and obviously in different parts of the country where either human trafficking, child slavery, sex trafficking; all that. They focus on saving those kids, adults; it doesn’t matter because there’s a lot of stuff going on in other countries that obviously doesn’t really get in the news too much so I wanted to support them on my cleats.”
(Two-parter for you if I could. First, the style of defense you guys do where you’re confusing people at the line where you’re not really showing them who’s coming, what do you guys call that? I know some people call it “amoeba” – I’m not sure if you call it the same thing. And second, when you hear Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer call that defense for you what does that do for you as a safety? What do you sort of feel?) – “You’re talking about like when everybody’s all up on the line?”
(Yeah, when everybody’s all on the line and they don’t know who’s the Mike, they don’t know who’s coming. You guys are all kind of standing up to try to confuse them on who’s blitzing and who’s dropping in coverage?) – “I don’t want to give you the play call just in case anybody hears us say that on the field; (laughter) but yeah, when we’re up there we have different variations where we try to give the same look, but obviously different pressure where we’re all coming or we’re dropping back or only he’s coming or maybe I’m coming. But as a safety, if I get that look where based on wherever the tight end’s at, if I get that look then sometimes I’m coming, sometimes I’m not coming, sometimes we’re dropping into a zone. It really works well because it gets kind of everybody on their toes. It’s not like we’re coming every single time we’re all lined up, so you got to keep the offense thinking.”
(Sometimes Head Coach Brian Flores gives us a quote that kind of makes us stop and think. Yesterday Coach said “you can’t to where you want to get without handling what’s right in front of you” and I’m kind of wondering how often does he sort of set a tone, deliver a message, reset the mindset with conversations or phrases like that?) – “It’s every week – let’s say like Mondays when we’re looking to the new opponent. It’s every week, it’s always kind of ‘don’t look ahead of whoever we got.’ Like last week, the Jets are 0-10 and it’s easy to just look past them, but it’s the NFL. If you don’t play your game, you’re going to get beat. It’s not high school ball where you just out-talent the other person, right? So every week he says ‘don’t look past whoever we’ve got. We’ve got to put our all into it.’ That only makes us better. If you look past someone, obviously you’re not going to play your best game and you’re not going to get better; and when it comes to let’s say, more challenging teams, we’re not going to be prepared. So each week we’ve just got to get better and that’s kind of the message he just preaches every Monday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. (laughter)”
