William Hayes – March 10, 2017
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Friday, March 10, 2017
Defensive End William Hayes
(How would you describe your reaction to being traded to the Dolphins?) – “Nothing really surprises you in this league, but I got excited. I felt like it was a team that wanted me last year during free agency and for them to still have interest in me again, it wasn’t the worst feeling in the world. I think if it was anybody else, I probably would’ve been a little bit more bummed; but I’m excited to get the opportunity to play for (Head) Coach (Adam Gase) and hopefully help this team any way I can.”
(How close did you come to signing with the Dolphins last offseason?) – “Very close. Very close. It came down between them and L.A. and I guess I chose to continue to go with the coach (Jeff Fisher) I knew. But I was maybe 10 minutes away from taking a flight here and probably signing (with the Dolphins).”
(With DE Cameron Wake and DE Andre Branch here, how do you view your role?) – “Whatever role they want me to play. Whatever role I can help the team. Cam is an exceptional football player and whatever way I can fit in to help better the team, I’m going to be that guy, the role player. (I’m going to be) the guy that can come in and just help fill in the holes as needed.”
(Obviously you’ve had a long career. I don’t know how many winning teams you’ve been a part of. How important at this stage of your career is making a playoff run, making a Super Bowl run?) – “It’s huge. I want to leave this game and when I leave it, I want to win some games. That’s the good thing about Miami. I’m coming in with a team that had 10 wins last year and you see them on the incline. The team is going up. That’s a big other thing. This team is on the incline and it’s only going to get better. Hopefully, I can come in and help make the team a little bit better.”
(How would you describe your game? What are your specific strengths?) – “The run. I play the run. I think I play the run fairly well. I think I’m pretty good from a leadership role. I want to come in and create an image and when guys see a guy come in, work hard and bring his lunch pail to work every day, but also have fun at the same time. That’s what I want to bring this team. I’m not trying to come in here and change the culture or try to do anything amazing. I just want to come in and fill that role that’s needed and help lead the team in a way that it’s probably already been led.”
(Do you have any friends on the Dolphins roster?) – “Not now; but hopefully in the next couple of weeks I’ll have couple of friends. (laughter)”
(Do you think the change of the coaching staff in L.A. kind of led to this? You obviously had been with Jeff Fisher for a long time.) – “I’m not sure what led to it, but I’m okay with whatever led to it. That’s something I can’t control. I’m not going to sit up here and try to figure out why it happened the way it happened. I’m just grateful that I have the opportunity to continue to play football and that’s what I definitely want to do. I’m not trying to go into this and figure out maybe if I would’ve done this different, if I was … I don’t know. That’s not really my concern anymore. I’m not affiliated with L.A. Rams anymore. I’m a Miami Dolphin. I’m not trying to figure out why. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but I’m just not really trying to figure out why I got traded. I’m just happy to be where I’m at right now and I want to win.”
(You mentioned having fun. How would you describe your personality and how that plays into who you are?) – “Full of life. I don’t know what I’m going to be when I … Every day I can come in and I can be a different character. But it’s never going to be negative. I just want to … I’m all about positive vibes. You can be happy and come to work and you can enjoy coming to work, it makes coming to work a lot easier. So that’s what I’m all about. I’m about good vibes and just creating a good atmosphere for me and everybody around me.”
(A little bit of a left field question but I think I saw on Hard Knocks, your take on dinosaurs not existing but mermaids existing. Is that correct? Elaborate on that.) – “I’m going to give you a quick little tutorial on the way William Hayes thinks. My theory is, I don’t necessarily believe in mermaids; but I believe in a theory there could be mermaids. For me personally, we have this world that is 80 percent water or something ridiculous like that. We’ve only discovered a small part of it. Every single day we pull out different creatures out of the ocean and we find different forms of life in the ocean. So my whole thing is, who is it to say there can’t be an Ariel floating down there in the water. We haven’t even looked everywhere. There are certain areas of the ocean that we can’t even see. So that’s my theory on mermaids. It’s a body of water. We made up this mythical creature called mermaids. It had to come from somewhere. With all of the body of water out there, I’m just convinced there could be (a mermaid) out there. But as far as the dinosaur thing, I just can’t roll with it. I go to the dinosaur museums and people tell me you see a fossil. You might see one bone that’s a fossil they dug up and everything else are just pieces they put together around the fossil and created a T-Rex. When I went to the Hard Knocks thing, I went to the dinosaur museum and they told me most of the fossils that was on the one dinosaur, everything was completely fake. It was just like made-up fossils. It was maybe like one leg – just a piece of a leg. You would have to create this big massive creature. It just doesn’t make sense.
(Are there any other interesting theories you have? I guess just to dig into your personality a little bit.) – “I don’t think men ever went to the moon. They told me not to say nothing, but that’s just another one. I’ve got plenty of theories. I can do it all day but we don’t have to do it right now.”
