Monday Media Transcript: OL Justin Pugh

Offensive Lineman Justin Pugh

October 30, 2017

Q: How are you feeling?

A: I feel better. We’re going to see how it goes this week. Just do whatever I can to get out there on Sunday.

Q: What happened?

A: My back was locking up on me so I went in and tried to get it to calm down. I couldn’t get it to calm down in the Seattle game. It was bothering me going into it. So hopefully this week, it will be good. Having the week off was definitely helpful so just go from there.

Q: Is this the same injury as you had previously?

A: Over the spring? No, different.

Q: Is it the same thing as the week before or just worse?

A: Actually, yeah. It happened in the fourth quarter of that Denver game. Obviously we were running the ball towards the end of the game, so it was fine. Going out there in the second half of the Seattle game, I just couldn’t get it to stay loose and I couldn’t move as well as I need to to be able to play that position.

Q: How hard is it to flush what happened earlier in the season as a player?

A: Obviously you’re in the middle of the season. You’re going through it so it is hard to flush it, but as a professional you got to go out there and that’s your job. You got to get ready to come back and go spend time with your family, get away from it for a second and then come back and realize what we have to do these next nine games and realize what’s your why. Who you’re going out there and playing for and go out there and we got to get it done these next nine weeks.

Q: They did a lot of self-scouting over the break, how many changes are you expecting?

A: You can’t make wholesale changes in the course of a week. Find out what we’re doing well, keep doing those things, keep getting better at those things and find out areas where you’re lacking. Obviously, makes some time for some changes there. You can’t make too many crazy changes. We’re not bringing in new personnel. It’s still the same guys in this locker room.

Q: Did you run different sorts of plays when you came back from the bye last year?

A: Yeah, run different formations, run different plays at them. Get into what we do best and really find different ways to get that run. That’s probably mostly what he meant. Obviously, we didn’t put too much in today. It was more of a welcome back, get out there, run around, get a little sweat going. So that was good today.

Q: Did you see any signs of this team buying into the hype and not having the same hunger as last year’s team?

A: I can only speak for me personally and you can look back at what I said. I said, I thought this was the best team that we’ve had on paper, but that doesn’t win games for you and obviously that didn’t win games for us. So I can probably say that I am guilty of that because I’ve said it publicly.

Q: Do you think this team was too full of itself?

A: I think in this league if you ever get too high, you ever get too low, this league will humble you real quick. That’s something you can take individually, you can take as a team. You want to remain that median, that consistency, because this league will beat you up. If you ever think you’re too good, you’ll find out real quick it will humble you and I can speak personally from that, not saying as a team. Then sometimes when you don’t think you can play, you can go out there and do some good things. We’re at a low point right now obviously at 1-6, so we got to go out there and we have a lot to prove still.

Q: Do you think this team has it in them to bounce back?

A: We’re going to find out. We’re going to find out what the character of the men in this room is made of and it’s going to start this Sunday against a really good L.A. Rams team.