Jameel McClain
August 16, 2015
A: Need myself to be resilient, and just to show like every other situation has.
Q: Do you have a time frame as to when you are going to be back?
A: I’m going to practice today, so I’m full tilt until a coach pulls me back. So I’m ready.
Q: Was it tough for you to stay behind when everyone went to Cincinnati?
A: Absolutely, that was my toughest part. I know my teammates are mad at me, calling them, calling coaches and finding out what’s going on at Cincy. How’s everything going? That’s the toughest part for me, but getting a chance to be here and get myself better and even more shape, doing some rehab, focusing on a little more of the football plays. But it was really tough to be here, it was really tough to watch it on TV, to be honest.
Q: Is that weird, to watch your team play on television like that?
A: It is, it is. The person that hates me the most is my fiancé. I don’t want to say my girlfriend, my fiancé hates me the most because I’m like, ‘What the …’ I’m an animated guy, so me screaming at the TV for a preseason guy, she didn’t love that too much.
Q: When you were out here last week and you got dinged, I guess it was a stinger. Because of all you’ve been through, do you at first think ‘Oh no, this is the worst that it could be?’ Or do you just have confidence that you’ll be back for the next play?
A: Yeah, that’s me, I’ll be back. The funniest thing is, most of them didn’t even know what was going on because I was smiling the whole time. I was just like, ‘Ahh, I’ll be back. And I’m just laughing it off the whole time, and they were like, ‘Just sit there, just sit there.’ I’m like, ‘I’ll be alright, don’t worry about me.’ So it’s always one of those things that, I’m used to going through so much, something small to me is probably something big to someone else. I’m just looking at it like, oh well, I’ll be back, I’ll be alright.
Q: Did they run you through a lot of tests? Tom Coughlin said because of your history, they had to be extra careful.
A: Yeah, I had my fair share of tests. That’s not in any comparison to what I went through before. What I went through before, I saw about 13, 14 doctors. Anything short of 13, I was going to be excited with. So I was good, man. They did all of their due diligence to make sure I was right, but it was clear from looking at the MRI that this wasn’t the same scenario, this was just a mild incident.
Q: Because of what happened with David Wilson, did anybody say to you if it happens again, you might want to rethink going forward?
A: It was always something that was mentioned before, even before this incident that happened. But different situations are different things. It’s not fair for me to compare mine to David’s or to anybody else’s or even to the incident that I had before, because this was completely different. That option is always out there, it’s something that’s always in the air when you go through an injury like this, but I’m built different. I die hard, like John McClain.
Q: You led this team in tackles last year, and it looked like coming into camp you were fighting for a job.
A: Like I said, it’s life. It’s life, man. Nothing is ever picking roses for me. Always got to go in and fight and prove day in and day out who I am and what I represent. This year is no different. From the injury or from my position on the team, it’s no different. That’s just this league, regardless. However you did last year, that’s last year. This is this year, and now I’ve got to prove again why I belong.
Q: Just to clarify, they’re going to let you practice or you’re trying to talk them into it?
A: They’re going to let me practice today.
