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Jaelan Phillips – September 30, 2021 Download PDF version

Sunday, September 26, 2021

LB Jaelan Phillips

(Good to see you get a lot of snaps last week. How did it go? What were your thoughts after watching the tape?) – “Man, it was incredible. Just the experience as a whole. I don’t want to give the Raiders too much credit, but their stadium is whew. (laughter) Their stadium is crazy. We had a great experience as a team just going through adversity, staying together. It’s always good to get those kind of games. Obviously you always want to come out with a victory, but at the end of the day, I think it was really good experience for me personally and for us as a team. So yeah, definitely happy about that.”

(And pleased with the sort of rush that you were able to get? You seemed to pressure well on a few plays. Were you pleased with how you did from that standpoint?) – “I’m never totally pleased, but I feel like I’m almost there. I feel like I’m starting to get some pressures and I need to find a way myself to convert those pressures into sacks, into negative plays. But it definitely felt good.”

(Did Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer tell you during the week or was it the game morning or was it just how the game went along that you were going to be used in more of a pass-rushing role. When did that become apparent?) – “I pretty much knew all week. The game plan changes every week, so it really just depends on their personnel, on what they’re doing, the matchups that we want to get. It just so happened that this week I was able to get some advantageous matchups, so it was good. It was a really good experience.”

(What was your reaction when he told you?) – “Like I said, it’s the same every week. It’s just – I like doing everything. It was fun. It was fun.”

(Do you think beyond the matchups that you also have shown something to coaches to allow them to trust you a bit more?) – “I think if anything, they’re just starting to notice that I’m getting it more. I think they’re starting to have a little bit more trust in me and I think that kind of equates to more playing time or being used in different positions. So I think for me, I’ve said it before: my focus has just been to get more comfortable in the scheme and then just keep improving every week on the things that I need to improve on.”

(Is there a particular vet that maybe you’ve leaned on just in terms of kind of getting the ropes and kind of understanding what it takes week to week to be successful?) – “I’ve definitely gotten close, especially the d-line – Emmanuel Ogbah, Christian Wilkins in particular, Zach Sieler. These are all guys that I definitely pick their brain a lot. Ogbah especially, just obviously he’s an end. He’s somebody that I kind of aspire to be like so I definitely try to talk as much as I can and what they do that I can appreciate. (John) Jenkins does this as well, ‘E. Rob’ (Elandon Roberts) does this as well. They hold me accountable, regardless of it’s a good play or a bad play. They’re just going to keep it 100 with me. It’s never good when someone is just blowing smoke at you and saying, ‘oh yeah, that’s great, that’s great.’ You want someone who’s going to keep it real with you, so I definitely think I have that on this team.”

(There’s been a lot of talk about third-down defense and getting back to where the team was last year. I know you weren’t here but what do you think separates third down from first and second, and what’s kind of the key to having success from your experience on third down?) – “I think the philosophy of the offense changes, right? When it’s third-and-10, they’re most likely going to air the ball out just because they obviously need to get the first down and they need to gain yards. So as a defense, you don’t want to place more importance on any particular down because the bottom line is if you don’t do well on first and second down you’re not even going to be able to get to that third down. So third down is just an opportunity to get off the field, get the offense back on the field to score points and at the end of the game, whoever has the most points wins. So it’s definitely paramount for us to get out there and be great on third down like we were last year. We’re just going to continue working on that. It’s definitely been a point of emphasis though.”

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