Phillip Lindsay – December 22, 2021
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Wednesday, December 22, 2021
RB Phillip Lindsay
(You’re in kind of a unique situation here where you come back for one game and then you’re down for a few games and I think a lot of times when guys miss time they say there was an advantage to being on the sideline and kind of getting a chance to do the mental reps. Did you feel that this time around for the Dolphins?) – “Thank you guys for having me today. Definitely. I think it was a whirlwind for me. I came in real fast and had to learn on the fly and things happen for a reason, and I got to really just sit there and really get to observe and watch my teammates and understand the run schemes and just enjoy some football and understand what they’re looking for. It was definitely a good learning curve for me.”
(You haven’t been here for too long, but I wanted to ask you about the one day at a time mentality from Brian Flores. Why do you think this is working for this team?) – “It’s definitely working because we’re focusing on that one day. Pretty much like today. We just focus on Wednesday practice. Now we’re going to go into Zoom meetings here later on. We’re going to focus on that. We’re going to get better. We’re going to watch film and we’re going to understand what we did wrong and what we did right and we’re going to continue to move on from there. That’s the kind of focus and the mindset you have to have in this league because you can’t take days off because every day counts and every day matters leading up into Monday night. So that mentality that my teammates show every day, the coaches show every day, it’s a great mentality and you’re seeing it day-in and day-out and we’re seeing it on Sunday so we’ve just got to keep doing that.”
(Following up on a previous question – the flip side to being able to sit back and watch and learn while you were away. You come here, you were able to play a couple days after you get picked up and now it’s been November 28 since your last game. So how difficult has that been to deal with and how antsy are you to get back on the field?) – “Yeah, I’m very antsy. I’m very excited. I was brought here to just help the team and that’s in any way I can do so. And you can’t help the team by sitting there watching. But I definitely took a lot out of it. But yeah, I’m excited. I’m very excited to be back and do what I’m supposed to do, whatever that is at whatever time and go from there. I just want to help this team win and they deserve the wins – the Miami fans deserve this – so we need to go out there and we need to execute.”
(If I may follow up, what were you able to do while you were on the COVID list in terms of being able to stay physically ready?) – “Pushups, sit-ups, Zoom meetings. Mentally, it’s true, a lot of times – everybody’s physically gifted in this league – but a lot of times I would say 90 percent of it is mentally. Mentally, are you bought into it, are you dialed in, dialed up to what’s going on, seeing things? That’s very important. I think that even though you’re not physically out there, you’ve mentally got to take a mental sweat and mentally fatigue yourself with that so when it’s time for you to go out there, you can execute.”
(Obviously COVID-19 affects every person differently. How did it affect you?) – “Honestly, I didn’t have any symptoms. For me it was like everybody in the running back room was popping positive so I was like let me go and make sure I’m okay so I don’t bring it into anybody else, and sure enough I went in there and I popped positive for it. I did what the protocol asked me to do. I stuck to it and I’m just glad – I’ve had family members that actually had to be hospitalized because of this. I have a son that is 1-year-old. It was very scary just to know that even though nothing was wrong with me, how it was going to affect my family.”
(Answer this if you want – obviously we know you’re vaccinated because of the protocols. Would you recommend folks get vaccinated? Were the family members of yours who had problems, were they unvaccinated?) – “Everybody that got it before the vaccinations really started becoming a thing, that’s when they were really hospitalized. I am vaccinated. I do think that for me personally, I think it did help me with my symptoms, but that’s everybody’s choice and everybody – that’s their right. To me, it’s just like the flu shot or anything else. You can’t tell somebody to do it. I think that it helped me out. My fiancée is vaccinated, but our 1-year-old son is not because he’s so young. It’s one of those things where it’s just scary regardless.”
(I do have a football question, but I wanted to follow up. So you had no symptoms?) – “Yeah, so the only thing that I probably had was maybe get fatigued. Truly. Now my fiancée ended up getting it and at the beginning, she was the same as me and she thought she was tough and then two days later, she was sitting there and her muscles were hurting really, really bad. It just affects people differently. Even when I got the shots, people say that you kind of get something. I thought they gave me a placebo or something because I felt good. (laughter) My arm didn’t hurt or anything. But I definitely got (vaccinated) and I definitely think that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t have significant symptoms.”
(I appreciate you for your transparency because I’ve been asking everybody – not just football players – like what are their symptoms and what’s COVID like. But football question – you are known as an outside zone runner, which I think is a great compliment. What does it take to be an effective outside zone runner and a team that can run that outside zone?) – “Yeah, outside zone – you have to be cohesive with each other. Like that’s one thing I have learned over the times with a lot of my running back coaches. You guys have to mirror up with each other. One of the best outside zone runners or two that I’ve watched growing up were one, Jamaal Charles and two, Chris Johnson. Hands down some of the best outside zone runners there are. And that’s just about pressing. You’ve got to be able to be patient in press and be able to cut on dime. The faster you can do that and explode, the better off you’ll be with that and that’s all about just patience and being able to come 0 to 60 like that. I don’t know too many people that can do that outside zone like Jamaal Charles and Chris Johnson did.”
(So you’re talking about chemistry with the line?) – “Yeah, with the line. Everything has to match up. But you’ve got to help your offensive line by putting them on their blocks, by being patient, by setting it up with your eyes. There’s a lot that goes into it that you have to slow your mind down and then once you kind of get the hang of that, you can get the gist of it.”
(So it takes a minute to get that flow with the offensive line?) – “Yeah, it takes a minute to get the flow in anything you do, especially this all depends on the scheme set and what the offensive line is better at doing and what you’re good at doing at that time. So it’s just about being on the same page.”
(I have a football question, but first I’m glad things turned out okay for you with the COVID situation. I can’t imagine how that must have been weighing on your mind. Were you having to self-quarantine from relatives to keep them safe?) – “Yeah, yeah, so I stayed downstairs in my basement the whole time because at the beginning, my fiancée and my son didn’t have it so it was just me. And she ended up getting it and we kind of had no choice but to quarantine and keep our son away from us. It was one of those times where it was just like you just see how real this stuff is and you understand that it’s serious. It’s something serious that a lot of people are still dying from today.”
(On the football side I wanted to ask you about watching the team this past Sunday the running game really came alive. It was the best running performance this team has had all year. I wanted to get your views on how the running game is starting to come together and also RB Duke Johnson putting up 107. You must have been happy to see what Duke was able to do.) – “Definitely. Duke (Johnson) has been in the league for a long time. Actually me and Duke came from Houston so we had a lot of Houston stories to tell each other, but Duke has been – like I said – people look at Duke and I think that they see Duke can catch the ball well, but they don’t get to really see that he really is a hard-nose runner. Think about when he was at the University of Miami. That’s what he did best. And for us I think it’s just a mentality thing. I think that it’s breaking tackles, it’s offensive line moving down, getting on to the secondary. It’s about finishing blocks. It’s about finishing runs. That over time, if you do that enough, you can wear a defense down and you can get that momentum going, and I think that that’s what you’ve seen with the Jets and Duke did a hell of a job doing that, bringing some juice and breaking tackles. And as a running back, you have to be able to do that to move the chains. You’ve got to do that extra effort and that extra effort – that’s what you see out there and that’s how you get wins.”
(Seeing him in this past game, I’m a little perplexed on how the first thing you think of when you think of Duke is not for that determined running, that power running, that he does. Do people underestimate that?) – “I think for people – I don’t think people understand how big Duke really is. I think Duke is like 210 (pounds). He’s strong, he’s patient and he can catch. And I think that for people, Duke was hungry. Duke – coming from Cleveland and Houston, he did really well there and then he had to sit out for a little while and to get an opportunity to be in his home state – I know how it is to be able to play at your home state and get that juice flowing. It’s a great thing and I’m glad that Duke was able to have that experience at home. There’s no better feeling than that and I think that he took it, he ran with it and it was really good to see. I’m excited for Duke and you’re going to see it moving forward from him. He’s going to give you everything he’s got and that’s all you can ask for from any of us, especially Duke coming in, kind of like I did, where we just came out of nowhere and had to learn the system. It was good to see.”
(Kind of the converse of a previous question, the Saints are pretty loaded at all three levels in the middle of their defense with Saints DT David Onyemata and LB Demario Davis and S Malcolm Jenkins. The names go on and on. What kind of challenges do those guys present you on the interior in the running game?) – “The Saints are a physical team. They’re physical, they’re sound, they’re aggressive and they’ve been together for a very long time. The Saints have been through a lot of ups and downs. They’ve seen it all. They have gone through heartbroken times so as a team collectively they share that bond, which is very special and it’s hard to break. That’s why that defense is what they are today. For us, we’re going to have to go out there and we’re just going to have to play football. It’s going to be to be a hard-hitting game. Monday night. Everybody is going to be watching and at the end of the day, you’re going to have to bring your helmet and bring your pads and it’s going to be like one of those games where last man is going to be standing at the end of it … For me, I was unfortunate to play the Saints when we had no quarterbacks back in Denver, so it was very hard because they’re just an aggressive group and they’re a close-knit tight group that goes as one.”
