Preseason and your first extended playing time. Yeah, how big you said this Monday night? Um u um. You know. I guess you could look at it as it's the last step, you know, getting out there and playing a full game. But you know, in my opinion, we've already hit the last step. You know, I think I'm ready to play. Um. You know, I don't think there's anything else that I need to do, and now it's time to just go out there and have fun and play
ball for a couple of days. Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't be excited, you know, especially you know, I don't even know how long I mean a year and a half, year and seven months, I mean year in nine months since I've played a regularity. I don't even know how long it's been. But yeah, yeah, opening day is always exciting, you know, when you haven't played in that long. I think it's you know, I'm not much more excited to get out there and play in preparation at all. As
far as we do, it's good. Uh not really, I mean I'm not really are you talking about on game day? On before like on game day? No, I mean I've always kind of had my own routine and you know, it's kind of it's been the same. Um. You know, I think just a little more you know, maintenance, a little more recovery, you know, making sure that, you know, my knee feels good throughout the week, just taking care of it, you know, a little more than when I
was young. You probably when you heard it the second time, there're ever any questions to be back here, get on as a starter, um, you know, aside from you know, those first couple of days where I was just you know, kind of really down about everything. No, you know, I knew that when I made the decision to come back and play, that you know, I was going to get back to playing at a high level when I was
going to be here again, career ending thing. Um, you know, I think when it initially happens, you know, before you talk to doctors, before they tell you that you know there hasn't been any you know, permanent or significant damage. You know, I think that thought always crosses your head. But uh, you know, after I talked to doc and knew that it was just going to be the same rehab process as it was the first time, I wasn't worried about it at all. Somebody I thought it had
written this that you considered forty eight or whatever. That's, yeah, I'm done. That was cool now, I think, you know, I think that thought comes into your head, you know, like man, I don't want to do this again, like I'm tired of rehab and I just spent a year rehab and and here we go again. But you know, I think when I really had to get serious about
making that it really wasn't a decision. I knew that, you know, once I could get back to rehabbing and could feel good that I was going to come back and play like a week. No, Like no, it's it's not like I debated for like six months and I was like, man, I don't know about this, like I don't feel good, like I don't like football anymore. Like it was more like a couple hour deal. Or it's like I'm just tired of rehabbing. But then you kind of suck it up and get over that and it's
back to normal. Which is how do you feel back and back? What do you feel like? Um? You know, probably when I got back to training camp, you know, obviously I was limited through ota, still kind of working to get some strength back in my legs and feel good. But once I got back to training camp and you know, didn't feel anything in my knee and felt like I was my normal self out there. I felt like I was back ready to go. How important or how not?
Wort is trust with your offensive line and then comfort knowing where guys are going to be and who's got who, and the syncing this focus downfield and play your game. Oh it's huge, you know, especially in this offense with you know, the way that we make Mike declarations and
some of the protections are run. You know, I have to be very in sync with Kels upfront and know you know where the point is, who I'm hot off you know, even our tackle sometimes can change that, you know, kind of make sure that I'm really just in tune with those guys up front. I think it's big. I think no matter what system you're in, it's important to be comfortable and have confidence in those guys in front of you. Uh, And in this system, I think it's
probably even more important than others. Saint Luisi was kind of a revolving door at times up in front of you. Is it is it not? Does it help you make the transition to this team? Having knowing who's in front of you, and they've been playing together through it for a while. Yeah, you know, I think, you know, whether it's football or business, anything, stability is a key to success, um, you know, and anything you do. And I think to have stability up front to have those five guys together,
you know, they flighted quite a few games together. You know, this isn't gonna be the first time they've started together. Um, you know, it means a lot, and I think, you know, those guys feel more confident in their ability. Your emotions will be stepping on the field, you know when that they football. That like just the fact that you've come from the circle and this will be you know, the
startup something new and exciting. Um, you know, I think to be honest, it'll probably be the same as it has every other season opener, except now I think, you know, I just enjoy things a little bit more, you know, take time to just enjoy the small things out there and just have fun because you never know when it's gonna be taken away from you. So you know, besides the normal excitement and jitters, you know, I'm just gonna
look to enjoy myself out there. The expectations out there and how the player that tries not to get caught up in that just play football. The expectations for this team were right now. Um yeah, I think I've told you guys from day one. Yeah, I really don't pay attention to anything that goes on outside this building. Um, you know, I'm not concerned with what the expectations are outside of this building. You know, we know what our expectations are of ourselves. Um, you know they're pretty high
as well. You know, we expect to go out there and execute and play to the level that we know we can. And uh, I think that's all that matters. Kind Of curious to see how it goes Monday with these weapons and the old line and you back there are You've had little snippets a few drives in Green Bay, but you never had a full game game planning and really kind of you know, taking the consideration that other defense, and I mean it's the first time it all comes together. Yeah,
kind of curious to see how it operates. Uh yeah. But to be honest, I think the beauty about the way we run things here is, you know, even though we didn't really game plan a ton in the preseason. Um, you know, we'll game plan for this game, but we're gonna run our stuff. You know, you're not going to see anything crazy out of us. It's going to be what we do. Um. You know. So I think I'm
comfortable in that fact. You know, we're not going to go into this game behind you know, and totally change the playbook, you know, and run a million different plays that you know we haven't run before. You is to rehab one ACL tare us too. How did you keep your sanity through the second month? Yeah, you just gotta
take a day at a time, you know. I think if you come in every day with the attitude that you're going to get better that day and you're gonna make progress that day, then the progress that you make over three and six months it just kind of comes naturally. But if you come in every day expecting to just make leaps and bounds, and when you're like, I can't wait till I'm running again, but you're three months away
from running, You're gonna drive yourself crazy. So I really just try to take it, you know, day by day. I think, Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, the first time, that's really kind of what I struggled with. You know, I wasn't really ready for the ups and downs of the rehap process. I expected everything to get better every day and for it to just come fast and natural, and you know that's not how it is. But you know, I think I was more prepared for that the second time.
It was the last step. When you said before, do you think the last step was taking some of those shots that you took in the preseason? Who was the last step? You know, running ten pretend to be made with when you said you'd feel like you've already made the last step? Which was the more important last step? I think just getting out there and you know, playing ball again, taking a few hits. Um, you know, feeling the speed of the game out there and just getting
back at it. What are the similar things you expect from the Land's defense. I mean, you know, if they run with Seattle's done, you know pretty well with the kind of concepts they have defensively, Um, yeah, you know, obviously you know we're expecting you know, a lot of single high you know, they're going to try to crowd
the box, take away the run. Um, you know, they're not overly complicated and what they do if it's you know similar, which it is compared to what we've seen from you know, Seattle in the past where I've seen the past few years from Seattle. But they're really good at what they do. You know, when you don't play a lot of coverages, you get really good at what you do. Um, you know. So we're gonna have to be ready and just be disciplined, you know, and take what's there. Yep, thanks, yeah, yeah,