Sam Eguavoen – August 7, 2022
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Sunday, August 7, 2022
LB Sam Eguavoen
(Is anything different than anything you’ve learned or done the last three years?) – “I mean, just fronts are always changing. Depending on the guys we have up in the front, (Defensive Coordinator Josh) Boyer knows how to utilize everybody’s talents and things like that. It’s kind of been the same, kind of in the same realm. But bouncing back from outside to inside, I feel like inside is where I feel most comfortable.
(After all this team, all these years, inside is now again where you feel the most comfortable?) – “Yes.”
(Why?) – “Just because I like playing – I like coming downhill. I like thumping more than setting the edge. I’ll do it, but I just feel like I like coming downhill more.
(Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer mentioned that he foresees some tweaks to the defense and maybe even some wholesale changes, which is a word that caught my attention. I was like, “Wow.” So, what’s kind of your sense about if some things might actually be different – scheme, play-calling, philosophy?) – “I don’t know if it’s like huge tweaks. I think it’s just everybody is starting to understand the defense a little more so we can do more. At first, it’s just, ‘OK, this is my job. I’m going to do my job.’ Now it’s like, ‘OK, this is my job. I know what he’s doing, so I can play off of him.’ I think it’s more of like a trust thing – everybody is starting to trust all 11 on the field.”
(What percentage of the plays on the iPad would you guess y’all actually never used last year?) – “Plays now – there’s a lot of new plays now. You can go back and look (at) it from last year, but now, the defense is kind of different from last year just the way we’re rotating and things like that. It’s kind of different. “
(I guess I was wondering is a quarter of the playbook just stuff you never actually get to in an NFL season?) – “It depends on the game. It depends on the team we’re playing, the gameplan. But yes, you’re not going into a game running every single call or expecting to run every 112 plays in a playbook. That’s crazy.”
(Overall, just where do you feel most comfortable in your growth in this defense? We saw you last year in the preseason game have four sacks, come back and it seems like there’s still a lot of competition in the linebacker room. But where do you feel you’ve grown the most?) – “Always competition. That’s just how I grew up. I was competing with my brother, and now I’m competing with my brothers in here. I embrace competition. I hype up the guys in front of me, I hype up the guys behind me, but I’m always comfortable. I’m always comfortable with my back against the wall. I get nervous when it isn’t against the wall. Just like you’re going to a bar, you always get to the back wall so you can see everything. So, I’m comfortable and I embrace competition.”
(Obviously you’ve moved around a lot, but overall in this defense, do you think there’s a particular area where you’ve really grown and really improved the most?) – “At inside linebacker. Now I’m finally just getting to play that right now (and) still getting some pass rushing in there. But inside linebacker and just learning the game more from there instead of just bouncing around all the time.”
(You mentioned your back against the wall. Do you feel that even more so this year after the Dolphins drafted LB Channing Tindall and re-signed RB Elandon Roberts at your position?) – “I mean, it’s always the same thing. That’s just the NFL. It’s a mindset thing, whether– even if I’m (Channing) Tindall and I’m (drafted in the) third round or I got drafted first round. You have to have the mindset of my back is against the wall. I don’t care if I may be favored or anything like that because the goal is to stay in the league for a long time, and if you don’t have that mindset of ‘(competition (means) somebody is coming for your job,’ you’re not going to last. So I don’t look at the draft (and say), ‘Oh dang, they drafted a linebacker.’ At the end of the day, I have to do my best. I have to put my best foot forward and whatever happens, happens, and I’m OK with that.”
(I know it’s on the other side of the ball, but QB Tua Tagovailoa hitting some of those deep passes, even QB Teddy Bridgewater hitting those deep passes to WR Tyreek Hill, and just hearing the fans, how jazzed they get. As a team, how does that affect y’all in practice?) – “I mean, we’re mad. (laughter) Right now, Tua (Tagovailoa) ain’t my – I’m not friends with Tua. I’m not friends with Tyreek (Hill). We’ll play ping pong in the locker room, but the more they score in practice, the more we’re getting chewed out in the film room. So right now, we’re kind of divided. I’m happy for him, but we’re divided until we get to Tampa and we can beat up on somebody else.”
(Does a part of you kind of like seeing them handle all the pressure packages you guys throw at them? Like you’re saying, if they can handle this, they probably can handle other stuff around the league?) – “Yes. Yes, I do. I do. Let’s just do it in a game. Even with our pressures and things like that, let’s do it in a game. I won’t get too high, and you can’t get too low. You just have to stay the course of football, man.”
(CB Xavien Howard had some of the Afrobeats and Burna Boy. Did you peep that in the playlist?) – “Oh, yeah. You know he had to play it for Nigeria – me, (Emmanuel) Ogbah, Noah (Igbinoghene), lil Kader (Kohou).”
(You’re now in Year Four at linebacker. Was there a player that you modeled your game after? A linebacker particularly that you looked up to before you came to the league?) – “Yes, my favorite linebacker was Jon Beason, just watching him work out and things like that, his drive, his passion for the game, his physicality. Jon Beason, that’s probably one of my favorite linebackers. Patrick Willis, too.”
(I saw Zach Thomas out here at practice today. Did you get a chance to talk to him?) – “Yes, I got a chance to talk to him in the weight room before we went out for walkthroughs. Good dude.”
(You said the weight room. He was lifting weights with y’all?) – “(laughter) No, no. He wasn’t lifting weights. He was just stretching and stuff like that.
(We’re about to be playing preseason games pretty soon. Anything you can do to top a 4-sack game like you had last year?) – “(laughter) I need six this year. That back wall. (laughter)”
