S Jabrill Peppers Conference Call-- August 30, 2019
Q: How excited are you to get the regular season started?
A: I’m very excited. The magnitude of the game adds excitement. We’ve been working hard all offseason for this moment and we are ready to go.
Q: How close are you following the Ezekiel Elliott situation?
A: That’s not really what I’m worried about. I’m just worried about getting myself in the best possible mindset, the best possible edge that I can have. Going out there to Dallas and playing a hell of a ballgame.
Q: The starting defense hasn’t played a lot of snaps this summer. How confident are you in the defense come opening day?
A: We have played with each other all day in practice. It’s not something we are really worried about. The issues that we have had have all been minor communication issues that can be easily corrected.We are not harping on that too much, we know what kind of guys we have in the locker room, we know what kind of defense we have. We are going to go out there and put our best foot forward.
Q: Has the defense developed an identity yet?
A: We are definitely developing an identity. We have a relentless mindset, we are going to communicate, we are going to give maximum effort, we are going to play with outstanding technique and we intend to create a lot of turnovers.
Q: You grew up in the area watching Eli from afar. What do you think of Eli after working with him all summer?
A: Eli was everything I thought. A guy who has seen it all, he has played a ton of ball. A two-time MVP, champion, he has played in the tough games, he has basically done everything you want your quarterback to do. I definitely see the greatness that he has, whether it’s finding the open guy or putting the ball where only his guy can get it, diagnosing the coverage, checking out to get those guys a better call. I think that in this league if you have a quarterback that can do that and do it at an exceptionally high level it gives you a lot of opportunities to win ball games.
Q: Talk about your receiver corps, particularly Bennie (Fowler) and Cody (Latimer) you won’t have Golden (Tate) for the first four games?
A: I personally don’t think there is going to be any drop off. Those guys have had a tremendous camp. I think they are going to surprise a lot of people. They are excellent route runners, they play hard, they block. Combine that with the run game, then play action pass, it’s definitely going to be something to watch. I’m excited to see it play out.
Q: What has Tae Davis shown you?
A: Tae has been great. He’s very fluid, he used to be a safety. He has very great feet, he’s very fast, quick twitch. He’s getting better with his calls and playing in there. I definitely think Tae’s is going to be a tremendous help for us. He’s involved in a lot of different packages, just making plays.
Q: Does it help that he used to play safety?
A: Absolutely, we kind of already have that feel for playing around the ball and working with one another in combo coverages and things like that. When you have a guy who can do that, but just a bigger guy I think that you have a lot of versatility in what you can call and where you can put guys. In the grand scheme of things, it definitely helps with our scheme, it definitely helps when we want to go sub or when we want to play fast or put him on the back or put him on the tight end. He’s excellent in coverage, definitely excited at getting a look at Tae and all the guys for that matter.
Q: When you look at this league a lot of teams win because they have talent and they don’t make mistakes. Last night, when you guys won, everybody ran onto the field. How important is that team feeling to winning?
A: It’s definitely important. You want to chase that feeling as much as you can. I think that even though the preseason doesn’t count, putting wins on the board and feeling that atmosphere, how the locker room is after the game, and showing that if you stay together and fight for the whole 60 minutes, it gives you the best possible chance to win the ball game. It definitely gives you things to build off of (and) things to coach on. Moving forward we can definitely build off that feeling.
