Lynn Bowden Jr. – December 14, 2020
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Monday, December 14, 2020
WR Lynn Bowden Jr.
(I read a story that when you were playing quarterback, that you liked to watch film of QB Lamar Jackson, who is a local guy down here for us in South Florida. I know you’re not playing quarterback anymore, but are there moves that he made or can make that you’ve enjoyed and tried to incorporate into your moves on the field?) – “Lamar, he’s a good player. He’s a great player in the league. Me and him had similar playing styles coming out of high school. I was a quarterback in high school and he was too, so I felt there were some similarities between me and him. When I moved to quarterback at Kentucky, I was like ‘why not watch him,’ because he was basically a splitting image of me. I took it from there and ran with it.”
(You talk about the positions you played. Obviously you played receiver and quarterback in college. I know the Raiders tried to make you a running back early on. Were you surprised they tried to make you a running back and do you feel more comfortable now playing receiver?) – “You can’t live in the past. You can’t worry about the past. Everything happens for a reason. I’m a Dolphin now. Without answering your question, but answering your question, I’m a Dolphin now. I’m not worried about that. To answer your second part, I do feel good playing receiver.”
(You watched as a bunch of your teammates got hurt yesterday. What was that experience like for you? How many different positions did you have to play yesterday to fill in? And if you’re asked to do it again this weekend, what kind of challenge is it?) – “It’s a challenge, obviously just being in the NFL. But since Day 1 when I got here, the coaches implemented you just don’t learn one position, learn them all. When things took place like that in the game yesterday, we all were ready to go in and fill in where we needed to be, and it was stuff like that that we prepared for – the extra walkthroughs coach gave us and a lot of stuff that you guys really don’t see how we prepare to keep us ready for stuff like that.”
(Sticking with yesterday, you came out of it with seven catches for 82 yards. I know you didn’t get the win which was the most important thing, but how did you feel about the way you played and does it give you that much more confidence if you were in a key role again this Sunday against New England?) – “There’s really no feeling about the way I played because ultimately we didn’t win the game. I could’ve went 10 catches for 500 yards and we lost, so it doesn’t matter how I played. At the end of the day, I want to win. If I don’t have any stats and we win, I’m ok with that. Having stats and losing is not really something I’m really high on because I don’t like losing. The stats are going to be the stats – whatever they maybe – but I’m really focused on this week. It’s a short turnaround, but I’m already looking at this Sunday and preparing my mind for that.”
(I’m looking up your information to back when you were a high school prospect. Did you always want to be a receiver or did you want to play quarterback at the college level? What made you move to receiver when you were asked to moved back to quarterback?) – “I wanted to be a quarterback. There was no question about it. I probably let some people downplay me and tell me what I was going to play instead of where my heart was at. I listened to them. It worked out for the best. It got me this far. I really wanted to play quarterback, but things worked out on the other hand at receiver for me and I really just ran with it.”
(It looked like Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey had a couple of plays in the playbook for you to be a quarterback. What was that like, for those couple of plays, to be back there in that role?) – “It felt good. I really don’t know what you all want me to say about it. (laughter) I’m here. They brought me here for a reason. Without really saying too much, I’m going to keep doing what I got to do to prepare and be ready for my name to be called, and we’re just going to run with it from there. No pressure, no nothing. Just one step at a time and look forward.”
(Does your background as a quarterback help you as a receiver, and if so, how?) – “Definitely. Just having a history on both sides, I get to read the coverage faster than most people do, even when they’re trying to disguise it. Everything starts to slow down for me because I had it from both sides, receiver and quarterback.”
(I like that you can get open, that it looks like you’re not afraid to catch the ball when you’re about to get hit and make a guy miss. Those are all attributes that really fit well for a slot receiver. Have you studied any slot receiver or another guy who you think ‘I can do some of that stuff?”) – “De’Anthony Thomas, when he was in college. Him and Marcus Mariota were my favorite two players. When I was a young kid, they were in college. I still watch him and sometimes Tavon Austin. I had Randall Cobb to watch when I was at Kentucky. I still watch some people around the league, even some college players, just to see how I can implement some things that they do into my game. There is always room for improvement.”
(A couple of months ago when you weren’t playing as much, you wrote on Twitter that on some level you were a little wistful about your time in college, wondering if you made the right decision to go pro. What were you thinking about that time and has your thinking on that changed?) – “It changed. But I’ve got to put this out there just to be 100 percent clear, when I tweeted that, it wasn’t anything about football. There wasn’t nothing wrong. Like I said in the tweet, it was something I was thinking about. I was talking to the guys at the moment. It was more of the education for me than the football. I felt like I probably could have put more into class my junior year than I did. There’s always time to go back and get my education; but at that time, that’s what that was about. It was never about not playing because I knew what it was when I got here. You don’t just come here and get the playing time right away. You’ve got to compete on every level. That’s what I’m going to keep doing, day-in and day-out.”
