Mike Gesicki – September 2, 2021
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Thursday, September 2, 2021
TE Mike Gesicki
(What’s it like hearing a story like that about G Robert Jones, a guy who didn’t have any D-I offers and comes from a junior college and makes it?) – “Absolutely. To see – you see just how positive he is, how happy he is. So I’m super happy for him. He’s an awesome guy, good teammate and obviously a great football player. He has come in here, impressed a lot of people, made plays, been physical in the run game and in pass protection and all that kind of stuff. I’m super happy for him.”
(One thing that’s common sports – maybe you wouldn’t see it in other professions – is a guy basically having to help mentor or train a guy who eventually could compete for that guy’s playing time. Now you have good people like you, DB Jason McCourty, G/T Jesse Davis who have young high draft picks behind them who are going to help those guys. But when you look at TE Hunter Long, does that thought – and not just with him specifically – does that thought ever cross your mind if you see a draft pick behind you? Say “well, I’m training this guy who might replace me” or is it just natural as a teammate and good guy to do it?) – “No, absolutely. I came in here four years ago as a second-round pick and I was looking for that guidance and help and somebody to help me out. So I know exactly the shoes that Hunter (Long) is in right now and anything I can do to help him, I’m willing to do it. We – me and Durham – we even went out to dinner with him just last week. Just anything whether it’s in the building, outside the building. Just hanging out and just helping with football and anything out there. It’s not the competition that people would think like, ‘oh man, I’m not telling him this because I don’t want…’ No. We want everybody to succeed in our room.”
(Who helped you? Was TE Anthony Fasano on that team?) – “No, so my year, it was MarQueis Grey, AJ Derby. There were a couple other guys, but those were the two older guys in the room and then Nick O’Leary came in so we had a couple guys in the room and it doesn’t have to just be in your room. There were a lot of older guys. I just kind of watched, see how they go about their business. The guy that I was kind of looking at that year was Danny Amendola. He was the locker next to me. Just kind of seeing how he goes about his business and all that kind of stuff.”
(What’s the evolution been like for you? You mentioned four years ago you coming in the league to where you are now.) – “I think for me, I think just kind of learning through – you could say ‘adversity’ or ‘struggles’ – it wasn’t anything major but just not having that instant success. You come in here; people – I remember when I got drafted, it was ‘oh, he’s going to score 100 touchdowns and he’s going to have all these catches and this, that, the other thing.’ And it didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen right away and it didn’t happen for the whole season honestly. And you kind of go back and you look at it and what do you have to improve on and all that kind of stuff and for me, it was just kind of learning the ins and outs of the game and going out there and making plays. So releases, second-level releases, getting guys’ hands off you. How are you going to run this route versus this coverage. So I think just kind of taking those negative, per se, experiences earlier in my career and then building off of it. I think once you make that first play, you kind of get that confidence. For me ,it was against Washington my second year in a two-minute drill. I caught a back-shoulder seam ball in a two-minute drill and that was like ‘all right, I can go out here and make plays and I can go out here and do it.’ I think once you make that first one, you kind of get that confidence and I think I always say to you guys – you’ve got to make the most out of your opportunities when they come and that’s kind of how I go about my business.”
(I remember that time and I guess it would have seemed like it would have been easy to get down on yourself. People were saying a lot of [expletive] about you and stuff like that. What did you do to not go down that hole?) – “So I’ve actually – obviously you hear the good, the bad, the ugly, everybody has something to say – and now you hear all the good stuff. People want to talk all – I don’t pay attention to any of it just because it’s just not productive either way. You pay attention to the bad stuff, then you’re down on yourself. You pay attention to the good stuff, you’re going to have a bad game here and the bad stuff is coming back. That’s just how it goes. I dealt with a little adversity back when I was in college and my sophomore year at Penn State and had kind of a similar situation and all the negative stuff. You just kind of flush it out and you don’t even listen to it. Come out, do your thing and when people want to hop on the bandwagon, it’s too late.”
(So you know where you were at the end of your rookie year and it’s pretty clear that you were disappointed that it didn’t turn out better than it did. So when that rookie season ended maybe you were cleaning out your locker and all of that – where was your mindset? What were you thinking at that point?) – “At that time, it was a new was coming in and you’ve got to come out here and prove it. I knew what I had to improve on and I knew the things that I had to do to come out here in this league and make plays and I just kind of went to work. That’s the thing. Every day after practice I stay out there and I do my JUGS. And I did that my rookie year. And I did it – but it’s like, ‘Oh man, I didn’t have any catches my rookie year. I didn’t make plays. All right, I’m going to stop doing what I’m doing.’ No. I’m going to keep doing it because at some point the opportunity is going to come. You don’t know when it’s going to come, but you have to be ready for it when it does. So that was kind of the mindset that I took. Just kind of sticking with my routine. Just kind of starting to learn the more ins and outs of the game, how to analyze defenses and coverages. ‘All right, this is Cover 1. He has this leverage on me. I’m going to run it this way.’ Rather than just being ‘I’m big and fast so I can go up and make the plays.’ Everybody in this league is big and fast and I think that was kind of something I had to learn. I was able to do so and now here I am to hopefully just add another year under my belt and go out there and make the most out of my opportunities.”
(There’s a lot of flooding up in the Northeast. Are your family and friends fine?) – “Yeah, family is good. I actually just heard about that this morning. That is crazy. I had no idea so obviously thoughts and prayers to everybody up there. That’s a wild situation right there, but I appreciate you asking that.”
(Every team that’s scouting you this year obviously knows how productive you’ve been and that you’re dangerous. That said, are you kind of curious to see how coverage of you changes at all with the injection of the explosiveness of WR Will Fuller and WR Jaylen Waddle with this offense?) – “We definitely got playmakers in the huddle; so you add a guy like Jaylen (Waddle), you add a guy like Will (Fuller), you get a guy like Albert (Wilson) back, you’ve got DeVante (Parker) out there. There’s playmakers across the board. And then you add in our running backs that can make plays in the pass game and then the rest of our tight ends. Honestly just across the board – there’s guys across the board that can make plays, so I think the biggest thing is just kind of knowing your role, knowing your assignment and then when you get in there, just understanding the concept of the play. Not every play is designed to get you the ball. Sometimes I’ve got to run and go take that backside safety to open it up for the next guy, so understand the concept of the play and then go out and execute it.”
(Hearing you kind of explain some of your story earlier, I couldn’t help but notice maybe some similarities with QB Tua Tagovailoa. Maybe some of the stuff that you had to go through. Have you talked to him at all about maybe your experience, his experience and maybe some of that?) – “Obviously Tua’s is way more blown up than mine. I was just a little nobody up at Penn State and obviously his is everywhere. I admire how he goes about his business and how he handles himself. I’ve kind of shared my opinions in the past about everything that he’s kind of gone through, so I’m proud of him just about how he goes about it and he’s the same guy every day. Positive, just goes out there and executes and does his job to a very high level; but personally, no, I haven’t talked to him about handling this or that just because I see him every day and he goes about his business at a very professional level and like I said, extremely positive and does a great job.”
(Obviously you’ve been a big supporter of QB Tua Tagovailoa, a defender of him at times. He doesn’t feel the need to do that. Do you feel like you guys as teammates sometimes have to carry the shield because he’s so lowkey, you know, quiet guy?) – “Honestly that’s just me. That’s just who I am. I feel like there’s different ways to handle things and go about things. Tua’s my guy so I’ll go to bat for him any day, but he focuses on ball and focuses on being a good dude and being a good teammate. I think that’s why things work out for him because of the way that he goes about his business.”
(QB Ryan Fitzpatrick had his ways I’m sure, things that I would never even know, little things he did. Is there anything that QB Tua Tagovailoa has sort of picked up the torch on and maybe even like a little tradition or some team thing?) – “In terms of that kind of stuff, the thing that Tua has done this year – him and I – we kind of on special teams periods, I’ll get together with him and just go get a couple extra reps. Like ‘hey, this is how I see this route right here.’ This is how I think they’re going to cover you here.’ And we just kind of go through the timing and get that chemistry down and I think that is just a bonus and to sit there rather than, ‘all right, they put the install up and this is this play and this is this stencil, this is how…’ He says, ‘all right, I understand this is the route, but hey, if you’ve got to cut this short because I’m getting pressure or hey, we’ve got this leverage and you’ve got to bend it here, that’s okay.’ So I think just going through it and talking through it with him and you can kind of see his confidence this year compared to last year just because you get that year under your belt and he has that knowledge of the game and kind of just talking through things. It’s been very productive.”
(Obviously you have to share Co-Offensive Coordinator/Tight Ends George Godsey a little bit more with the offense now. What have you noticed about George and Co-Offensive Coordinator/Running Backs Eric Studesville’s offense as they put it together and what stands out?) – “I think the biggest thing – football is football – there’s only so many different plays you can run and all that kind of stuff, but they’ve done a good job just kind of instilling confidence in everybody, getting guys in positions to be successful and I think we’ve done a good job grasping it as an offensive unit in all positions in all phases. I’m excited to kind of get this thing rolling.”
(How has WR Albert Wilson looked since coming back? I guess he’s coming back from two different things – last year and also in recent weeks? So what can he inject into an offense?) – “Yeah, Albert (Wilson) has done a great job and you can tell that he’s kind of invested in himself and has been working extremely hard for this opportunity. I’m really happy for him and I think that what you guys saw out in training camp; just the speed and the ability to make plays downfield, but also catch-and-run stuff, similar to how he was back in 2018 when you saw that burst that he had prior to him, like you alluded to, coming back from that. So I think he’s done a great job and I’m excited for him this upcoming season.”
