Transcripts

Search Transcripts
Zach Sieler – November 7, 2024 Download PDF version

Thursday, November 7, 2024

DT Zach Sieler

(How worried were you when the injury first happened?) – “It definitely was not an injury I ever expected to have to forego with football. I was very fortunate; God looked out and my actual physical eyesight and everything ended up being all right, the biggest thing was the swelling. So once that started to calm down, it really was able to work through kind of what happened, how to go from there and how to recover.”

(What can you tell us about how it occurred?) – “I’ll be honest, I don’t even know. I just remember just on a block, all of sudden (my) head went back and something hit my face or hand, I don’t know what it was, but yeah.”

(And you’re going to wear a visor?) – “Yeah, I’ll have a visor on for my wife the rest of my career. (laughter) And she’s right though. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to go through something like that again. As frustrating as a visor is – I remember in COVID we had the visor and the faceguards and getting in your stance, you start sweating on them and everything and it gets tough. But without the lower face – the COVID guard or whatever that crap was – it’s a lot better, just the visor.”

(What can you tell us about the incident? About getting hit?) – “I remember just coming on the edge and I don’t know what it was, but something got up in my mask and I just remember my head going back and I just had to put my hand – kind of just dark, no other way to say that. Like I said, it’s nothing that I really expected to work through. And then once that swelling got under control and I was able to work through what happened and everything, it was better. So I’m glad to be back, it sucked missing two games. It’s never happened to me. Thankfully I’ve been fortunate enough and blessed to where I didn’t have to go through something like that. I’ve played through a lot and could play through a lot, but this was something that kind of had to be worked through separately.”

(What did you experience along the way? Was it blurry vision for X number of days or how did it go?) – “It was the swelling that kind of messed with me I think, as in that was the biggest hurdle to work through. I don’t think I said this – I was fortunate enough to where my actual retina and cornea didn’t get damaged, but the swelling made it hard to kind of decipher what was going on. So once that did calm down after a few days, I was able to get a plan of attack and kind of work through it.”

(You mentioned that it sucked missing two games, obviously knowing how tough you are, what was it like for you to just not be able to help your team out, knowing the guy you are?) – “It kills me. It sucks to be in the trenches working with these guys day-in and day-out and then just on a Thursday just kind of not be able to – all of a sudden it’s, ‘Hey look you guys, it’s on y’all this week.’ And it happens, it’s football. It happens to everybody. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen again probably, it’s just what it is. Don’t know how long it’s going to go or what’s going to happen, but just get through this injury and then go from there.”

(Anything that you notice with the defense that you feel like you can obviously add?) – “I’d like to think I bring some energy to it. (laughter) I think those guys did a great job these last couple of weeks. I think they held them under 100 yards rushing both teams and hopefully I can come back in and make that even better.”

(Where do you see the position that this team is in and the sense of urgency?) – “Urgency is a good word. We have no more time to mess around. I think 2-6, but I think we still could achieve what we want to achieve. We’ve just got to clean some things up and come together as a unit and hopefully this is the week we can do that.”

(Obviously, facing RB Kyren Williams this week, definitely one of the best running backs in the league. What do you guys hope to do to kind of try and stop him? Especially considering the past two weeks under 100 yards rushing.) – “I think the biggest thing for us this week is gap sound, play our style of defense which is do your job. You’re one piece of 11, and focus on our part and each play what we’re going to do and work from there. It’s not trying to be an all-star or make these huge plays, it’s ‘Hey, this play dictates what I can do,’ and play within the scheme. I think we’ll have a great shot if we do that.”

Search Transcripts

Weekly Archives