Jaelan Phillips – September 8, 2021
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Wednesday, September 8, 2021
LB Jaelan Phillips
(Have you recovered from Saturday?) – “Have I recovered from Saturday? No. It was a sad, sad day. (laughter) But it was a cool experience though. Obviously the boys, they’ll bounce back. Their season definitely isn’t done.”
(Was there any fun bets between you and Alabama teammates?) – “That’s undisclosed. (laughter) We’re going to keep that under wraps.”
(It wasn’t fun for you.) – “No. (laughter)”
(Does part of you still pull for or pay attention to UCLA at all?) – “Yeah, it’s mixed feelings. I grew up a UCLA fan so I obviously want the best for them. I don’t harbor any bad feelings towards the coaching staff or anything there, but it was definitely cool to see. There’s probably like, 10 to 15 guys on the team that I played with so definitely good to see their success and cool for the city of Los Angeles to be able to get a big win like that.”
(What do you think it’ll be like to take the field for a real NFL game?) – “It’s going to be crazy. It’s going to be fun. Like Jevon (Holland) said, it’s been a dream of mine since I was little to be able to do this for a career and it’s honestly so surreal at this point so I can’t even tell you how it’s going to feel. It’s just a lot of emotions, a lot going on at once; but you’ve just got to focus on the game. I’m definitely excited.”
(Got anybody flying up to see you?) – “I’ve got like 20 people coming actually. (laughter) My sister funny enough just enrolled in Harvard Law so she’s up there – up in Cambridge – so she’s going to come. My family is flying up. I’ve got some family friends coming up, so it’ll be awesome.”
(The defense seems to be asking you to do a lot of different things and we saw a lot of that in the preseason finale standing up, hand in the ground or even dropping back. How do you feel you’ve handled all those different responsibilities?) – “Honestly, the NFL is humbling. You come out of college and you kind of think you know a lot and you know it all and it really turns out that you don’t know too much at all. So for me, it’s just been a constant battle to learn as much as I can and really try to develop all different parts of my game because I don’t ever want to be only able to do one thing. I’ve always wanted to be multifaceted; and so for me, being able to rush, being able to stand up, put my hand in the ground, cover, do all that is going to be important for me obviously and important for the team. So I’m just learning every day and doing what they tell me to do.”
(We saw you in the Bengals game obviously dropping into coverage more than you did at Miami but similar to UCLA I guess in a linebacker role. Did that feel natural to you that day and in practices? Is it still tough to get used to dropping into coverage some?) – “You said it perfectly. I really didn’t drop too much at Miami and before that I hadn’t played ball in over a year and so I’m still kind of getting used to it again. Like I said, just trying to get better every day at it, but I feel good. I feel good doing whatever they ask of me.”
(Do you have any sense what kind of role you’ll have Sunday without giving it away? Do you think you’ll have a significant role Sunday? Is that unclear to you?) – “Yeah, I mean honestly it’s really just up to the coaches and whoever they see fit to go out on that field and perform the best. I can tell you that coming up, just whenever I get the chance, I’m going to play as hard as I can and do what I can do.”
(There’s a short list of players that people think have a real shot at going after Defensive Rookie of the Year and you’re on that short list. Have you heard that chatter? Is that one of your many goals maybe to take on that honor?) – “I mean for me, it’s obviously focusing on this week first. It’s a 17-game regular season so a lot can happen from now until then. Obviously that would be great; but for me, my focus is definitely on today, next day, this week. And we’ll see how it goes from there.”
(Head Coach Brian Flores said not to put too much emphasis on the depth chart, but we don’t have our heads in the sand. We noticed and I’m guessing you did that you were listed at third team. Was anything explained to you about why and what you need to do for that to change?) – “Funny enough, I actually didn’t even see it this week. I saw it a couple weeks ago. For me, depth charts don’t really – it’s just paper at the end of the day. It’s just the names on paper and so I guess come Sunday, we’ll see who plays where and how that goes down. For me, it’s just being ready whenever my name is called, whenever I have the opportunity to make the most out of the opportunity. So it really doesn’t matter, I guess you could say, for the depth chart.”
(It’s been a while since anyone’s really played in a full stadium with fans. What’s that experience going to be like for you especially at Gillette, which gets loud?) – “Even playing – well I didn’t play against Chicago – but being in Chicago, that stadium was pretty rocking. They had a lot of people there. And even last week we had a good amount of people in the Hard Rock. That’s definitely the most fans I’ve played in (front of) in honestly all of college because UCLA didn’t – the Rose Bowl doesn’t really fill up that much. So it’s definitely going to be a pretty wild experience to just hear the crowd and experience all of that so I’m excited.”
