Mike Pouncey – November 11, 2017
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Saturday, November 11, 2017
C Mike Pouncey
(You didn’t take a day off this week. Just talk about how well you’re feeling as far as physically.) – “I feel great. I feel great. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be out there practicing, I’d just be playing the game; but I want to get out there to start moving around now that I’ve got my feet back underneath of me and finish the season the right way.”
(Losing T Ja’Wuan James for the rest of the year, just talk about that and how much confidence you have in G/T Jesse Davis.) – “We’ve got a lot confidence in Jesse. Jesse’s a big guy – big and strong – and we think he’s going to block guys really, really well on the edge. It sucks losing Ja’Wuan. He’s a guy that’s been here for a long time. (He’s) a good football player for us, so we hope and wish that he has a speedy recovery, and look forward to having him back next year.”
(What does C/G Ted Larsen bring to the offensive line?) – “He’s a veteran player that’s really smart. He really understands football. He’s a really good guard. He can pass block one-on-one by himself and to me, that’s what I think makes guards really, really good, whenever they can pass block one-on-one by themselves.”
(Now how much does that change your role in terms of not having to help the guards maybe get to the second level?) — “It’s not going to really change. Our offense is already built in for me to help everybody out and I think Ted’s (Larsen) going to do a great job. He’s been a good player his whole career. I think we’re just going to stick to what we’ve always done and if they need help, they’ll tell us on the sideline.”
(You were talking about your practice schedule. Do you think the extra day will help you on Sundays or just the team in general having you out there just benefits …?) – “We’ll see on Sunday if it helps at all; but I just think me being out there around the guys every day, especially a game like this when we’re practicing on our silent count, and Thursdays is our big pass days, so I need to be out there with the team.”
(Offensive Coordinator Clyde Christensen talked about this yesterday about the fact that two losses on national television kind of hurt him a little, it pissed him off a little. Would you say or feel this in the locker room that this is a chance, the last chance, to show the nation what this team is made of?) – “I mean honestly at the end of the day every game to me, I prepare the same way. I don’t care if it’s at 8:30 p.m. or 1 p.m. I’m going to go out there and play the same; but obviously when you’re on the big stage, you want to play as well as possible, and we haven’t done that these past two times that we’ve been on the stage. We want to go out there and play well just like we do every weekend, but we’re not going to put more into it than what we need to. It’s just another football game.”
(Does a Monday night game get you up more or is it just…?) – “It’s one game. It’s another game. It’s football. We’ve only got 16 opportunities and honestly for me, I cherish every one of them just because of my situation that I went through last year. Each time I get to step on the football field, it’s just truly a blessing.”
(Last year you guys finished strong, winning nine of 11 games. What can help you get that hot finish?) – “I think we just do what we did last year. Last year we were at the same spot, 4-4, and we just started winning football games. We kind of were struggling at first and then we had the Tennessee Titans game, where offense started to turn over a little bit and the next week, the Pittsburgh Steelers game, we turned it on. Hopefully it works out the same way that we hit our stride and we finally find our groove of offense, and we can keep our defense off the football field and help them win football games.”
(Doing that last year, does that really help you as far as confidence going into this year?) – “Yes, just any other football season. Anything can happen. We know that the first half of the season obviously didn’t go the way we wanted. We had a lot of stuff going on. That’s no excuse. We still have to win those football games and this is a new season for us. We’ve got eight games to go out there and try and get into the tournament, and that’s our only goal.”
(What’s it like to have a non-distraction week?) – “(laughter) It feels good. This is what we expect at all times: just come in and worry about football and focus on football. That’s the kind of week we had this week.”
(You’re so consistent with your snaps that when you skip one it’s like … what happened on Sunday?) – “I’ll tell you (Michele Tafoya) jinxed me. She asked me about my snaps before the game and I said, ‘You know what, I hope it doesn’t happen this game.’ And (it) happened. Could you let her know that she jinxed me?”
(You were looking at your gloves.) – “Honestly, it was really humid out there, the field was wet, we were in a no-huddle drive where we just kept getting back on the football. I didn’t really have time to wipe my hands and it just slipped out. I felt it slip out and tried to turn back around and luckily Jay (Cutler) jumped on top of it.”
