Jordyn Brooks – July 30, 2024
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Tuesday, July 30, 2024
LB Jordyn Brooks
(You’ve got to like the more physical aspect of practice starting up now, practiced in pads yesterday, get some short yardage situations going. What do you like about training camp getting to that point?) – “I think it’s cool. It’s good from a competitive standpoint. You want to get guys competing because teams periods, I’m not going to say it’s not as competitive, but it’s not real-life situations. We got the little goal line situation, third and one, and that’s a real-life thing to where offense got a yard to go, defense got a yard to stop, so I thought it was cool.”
(Little bit of a skirmish at one point, what’d you think of that going down?) – “Yeah, by that time I was dead tired. I was on the other side of the field, so I ran in late but if I had a little more energy I would probably help out.”
(What are you supposed to do when you run in?) – “I don’t know. We all got on helmets. (laughter) It’s my teammates so it’s kind of like – I think what you got to do when it’s a big crowd, you’ve got to do a lot of movement to make it seem like you’re doing something so nobody can say nothing at the end. (laughter)”
(Sometimes you see football players in a situation like that take off their helmets, why would they—) – “See, that’s what you don’t do. (laughter) There’s one clip a couple of years ago with Brian Cushing. He got into a fight on the field, took his helmet off, headbutted a dude, broke his nose and bleeding. You don’t want to end up in that situation, so you might want to keep your helmet on. (laughter)”
(Speaking of helmets, I asked everyone else, I want to ask you about guardian caps. You can wear them in games now, do you have any plans to?) – “Do I have any plans to? No way. It’s like an extra ten pounds on your head. It makes it a lot hotter and heavier, so no, I wouldn’t do it.”
(So you haven’t loved having to wear them in practice then?) – “No, not at all. Everybody’s got like – I call them UFO caps, honestly. (laughter)”
(This team, the reputation is that they are speed, speed, speed and not a lot of physicality. What do you think that this defense is going to do to kind of change that identity?) – “Just be physical, just be physical. I think a lot of that is just because of how much attention Tyreek Hill draws on the national stage, the speed and everyone pays attention to that, which they should cause it’s that good, but the defense kind of gets overlooked in that way. I think that’s everybody’s mentality coming in. New guys like myself pride ourselves on being physical, and I think of any great defense, you have to be physical. We want to be feared and so right now, we’re in the process of doing that. Not everyday is going to be perfect, but that’s why we got the pads on working in the heat and just emphasizing it day after day until we get to the point where we feel like we’re the bullies on the team.”
(For you, you played both the Will and the Mike while you were in Seattle. Where do you see yourself slotting in with Miami?) – “Right now, I’m playing the Will position. Like you said, I can play either position. Personally, I like playing Will a little bit better. Just my personal preference, but I could play either one.”
(You’re new here, new scheme, a lot of new guys in front of you on the defensive line. How’s that process going for you guys, all kind of feeling each other out to know how to play off of each other and is there anything you can do off the practice field to help that process go along?) – “You got to sit down and eat lunch with people. Maybe even go to lunch with somebody outside of the building, you got to do little things like that. I really pride myself on doing that, just really getting to know people on a personal level. Even if we never play with each other again, we built that relationship. But just from experience, just playing ball for a number of years, anybody you know on a personal level, you can play that much harder for them. Like I really know this guy so I can really go to war with him when it gets tough in the fourth quarter. And that front seven, the d-line, linebackers, really everybody, but really that front seven, we really got to be like this (interlocks fingers). That’s something I try to emphasize a bit more. In the past I haven’t been great with it, just kind of being reserved, but just kind of sitting next to guys and picking their brain.”
(Does that also lend to when something bad happens on the field, when someone makes a mistake, that closeness, you can then have that tough conversation immediately on the field?) – “Absolutely. That’s a big thing. The guy who’s getting yelled at, he can receive that better instead of looking at the dude like, ‘I don’t even know you like that. Why are you coming at me like that?’ Rather than he’s looking at him like a big brother type of relationship and he knows the only reason he’s yelling at me is because he wants me to be better and so I can accept that. I may not like it, but I can accept it, so I think that goes a long way.”
(How much of that bully thing talked about inside the building, facility, meeting rooms?) – “Well Jalen Ramsey just talked about it for about ten minutes after practice – a long time. I think there’s just a mentality. You have to have that mentality on defense, because we are reacting to what the offense wants to do which really makes it harder in my opinion, to play defense because they know exactly what they want to run already. We got the call, we can have some awareness of what they might run, but you don’t know for sure, so you’re always on your heels. So if we can be the initiators, we can be the bullies, I think that makes you a dominant defense to where you’re proactive rather than reactive.”
(Any insight to what CB Jalen Ramsey told you guys?) – “Yeah, I’ll just leave it at that. Just a lot of things the team needed to hear, but that was one of the biggest things, just being a bully on defense.”
(We heard Head Coach Mike McDaniel say earlier today that the emotion of coaching is often lost and that in order to get a guy to where he wants to be his best, you have to be able to reach him. Hearing you speak about chemistry and getting to know your teammates, how has Defensive Coordinator Anthony Weaver gotten to know each and every one of you on defense to the point where it feels like it’s bringing the best out of you?) – “I think it’s just a thing that happens naturally over time. What I like about (Defensive Coordinator Anthony) Weaver, he doesn’t force it. You can tell when somebody is kind of forcing a relationship or trying to just do things. He’s kind of really natural and organic, just literally, you might be standing off and he might tap you on the shoulder and talk about whatever. Little moments, like I said, they go a long way. It’s like, ‘Oh, I thought you were going to talk to me about ball,’ and he asked me something personal. That just goes a long way, and I think he does a great job of just doing that, just being who he is and I don’t think its forced at all. So I think in the long run, you’ll see a lot of guys playing hard for him just because he’s able to reach guys on a personal level.”
