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Monday Media Transcript: Tight End Rhett Ellison

Eric from BBI : Admin : 7/30/2018 3:20 pm
Tight End Rhett Ellison
July 30, 2018
 
Q: Rhett, what does a guy like Nate Solder bring to this offense?
A: Right off the bat, he’s just a great guy, great person. A lot of times the greatest football players are great people first. Having that presence, having that example and leadership was very impactful right off the bat.
 
Q: Rhett, you were with coach Shurmur in Minnesota, how is he different than what you expected in his new role as a head coach and does that familiarity with him help you in any way?
A: Yeah, definitely. Right off the bat, the language is similar, I’m fluent with it a little bit. Shurmur is a very flexible guy, he doesn’t like to be rigid with his offense, he likes to be able to do a lot of things with a lot of different types of people, so it’s been a lot of fun to have an offense like that and get back to that, it’s been a good time.
 
Q: You can tell already by what you guys have installed that this offense is going to have a lot of his fingerprints on it, right?
A: Yeah, definitely. It’s also the players’ fingerprints - you play the offense and make the calls that are going to be the best for those players, depending on who is on the field at the time. That’s what I meant by he’s flexible, he takes what the players are good at and really puts an exclamation point on it.
 
Q: So that makes the learning of the new playbook a lot easier than it otherwise would be?
A: Yeah. Typically, you get in an offense and its like ‘this is what a two tight end personnel does’ and that’s it, this is what a three wide receiver personnel does and that’s it’, so for him it’s just very conceptual.
 
Q: Does he come to some of the veterans and ask them for input, “What do you think about this, what do you think about this situation?”
A: That’s probably a good question for the quarterbacks because they’re the leaders of the offense. I think he does go around to the quarterbacks and asks them stuff they like and things like that, but I think he also goes around to the coaches and asks them what they like, again he’s just a very flexible guy.
 
Q:  There have been some questions from some of the writers about whether Barkley can adjust to running with a fullback because at Penn State he didn’t. From what you know about this offense, obviously you may even play some snaps at fullback, do you think that’s going to be much of an adjustment for him?
A: From what I’ve seen from Barkley, he is obviously very gifted, his instincts are very impressive, so putting fullback in the mix changes the timing here and there, changes the read a little bit, but I think he’ll pick it up just fine.
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