DE Robert Ayers
September 28, 2015
A: …I’m happy to be out here with my guys. Today won’t be a real good indication of how things are going to be, but I’m definitely excited to be around my guys, have a couple days off, and most importantly, I’m happy that my guys won. I’m very proud of that and we’ll see how the week goes as far as me.
Q: Did you have an opportunity to show them you could be ready for Thursday or did the short week really compromise?
A: That’s neither here nor there. I didn’t play and we won and now we’re on to Buffalo.
Q: When you see yourself out there, Victor [Cruz] out there, DRC [Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie], all the guys who were hurt, do you feel like you guys are starting to get healthy?
A: Definitely, all things are in the positive as far as getting all the guys back. I think the better teams in the league are the teams that can stay healthy. I don’t know the statistics offhand, but if you look at the teams that have won, they’ve been able to keep guys healthy, and guys off IR. I know the year we played Seattle when I was in Denver, they didn’t have anybody hurt. The entire team was healthy and we had a bunch of star players hurt. Not saying that’s why they beat us, but being healthy is a big thing. If we can stay healthy and keep guys on the field, I definitely think our chances will increase. It’s a very good thing to see great players like Victor and DRC back on the field.
Q: Does it help lift everyone’s spirits when you see guys like Victor coming back?
A: Definitely, not only just the player he is, the leader he is, the type of person he is, the type of teammate he is, when you know you have a good person like that that’s battled back, it makes you want to play harder when you know how hard he’s worked to get back out there. He’s out there with you and it just gives you that extra pep. It’s very encouraging to have guys that have been through things, an injury like his, to be out there, it’s a positive for morale for the team, and also for making plays and winning.
Q: Did you spend time yesterday watching games, watching Buffalo, or did you take family time?
A: Family time in my house is watching the games together. My wife is a big football fan and she’s watching it. My kids are watching it with me as well and we do all that together. I’m definitely a football fan, not only because I play, but because that’s what my wife and I grew up around. We both love it so we watched almost all the games. We had the Direct TV channel on flipping back and forth. I was trying to watch all of them, my daughter was right there with me, so I definitely got a little advance scouting going on yesterday.
Q: Can you scout it or can you pull back and just watch it as a fan?
A: It’s kind of both. I kind of look at it and see what they’re doing in certain situations and see how they develop plays, tendencies as far as certain situations, momentum swings, and things like that. You can’t really get the feel for that when you’re watching it on regular film because there’s no sound and no atmosphere. Sometimes a coordinator may call certain things, after a big turnover they want to take a shot to the end zone, so things like that you can pick up on just from watching the game on TV. You can see how momentum changes things, and how he wants to call plays, and if a team wants to go for the dagger, so you definitely can get a lot from watching the games on TV, I know I do. As a fan, I love the game, so I’m doing both.
