You guys were dominant defensively. How much fun was that getting after it on the line?
Super fun. It's always fun to play Tennessee. They know that we know that. No matter what the record is, we know it's going to be a dogfight just like this. Like it don't matter what they did all season or what we did all season, we know this game for sure is going to be won in a fashion like this. Obviously, we didn't want it to go to overtime, but overall, like, at the end of the day we got the dub.
What did you show everybody about this team's resilience? When you guys are way shorthanded, Case (Keenum) goes out there and does his thing. Devin (Singletary), the defense, everybody seemed like they kind of banded together when you guys are really shorthanded.
Yeah, Case (Keenum) is like that gel for all of us. I mean he's been that vet that's been in the locker room all year, even back toOTA's (Organized Team Activities). So having a guy around here like that it just keeps everybody else calm. And then obviously when his number was called, we had all the confidence in him. Even on the defense side, we knew that 'Hey we can score touchdowns on our side too. Or we can try to do something on our side to help those guys out.' Obviously with seven (C.J. Stroud) not being there, obviously, it's going to be a transition. It's going to be obviously a little struggle at times. But we knew that defense was going to have to win this game for us. And they came up big. We came up big.
What did it mean for you guys to get this win in spite of C.J. (Stroud) not being out there? How much were you playing for him?
It's huge. Not just him. Will (Anderson Jr.), Tank (Dell), all these guys. Our young guys is banged up right now, and they got to see that. I've been there before with the tough injuries as a rookie and even early on in my career. But, you kind of can feel like things can be forgotten. The show must go on whenever we're getting dubs like this. But we always thinking about those guys. I mean, they did a lot for us to get us to this point. We just had to basically carry the torch for them and let them know that it's all right and we still got their back. We're going to keep playing for them all season for sure.
You preachweek to week about the defense doing their job so the offense can do theirs. Today, you all were able to stop them on offense to get the ball back, to keep the offense getting possessions. How big was that for you?
It was huge. I mean, obviously the more opps we continue to give our offense, the more they can figure things out, with Case (Keenum) back there. We know that it was a tough game. We knew that it was going to be a low scoring game. Whether we had seven (C.J. Stroud) here or not, we knew that this was going to be a tough fought game. Defensive sided, they have a great defense over there, well coached. Same with us over here, I think we got a really good defense. I think that we just had to be the best team and not mess up as much and obviously capitalize on our opportunities. And I think that was the main thing that we did whenever we got an opp we seized the moment and set ourselves up to make sure that we get a dub.
Them wearing the Oilers uniforms, does that mean anything to you guys?
Hey man, I could've sworn those was ours. But at the end of day, they can wear them. They took a L in them at end of the day. So, we can just continue to see who going to wear those eventually. If they going to pull those out again, I don't know if it's bad luck or whatever. But they're going to have to see us in two weeks. So, we'll see if they got the white jerseys, a version of those, if they going to pull those out. But we'll see, man like, I'm excited. It was a good look for them. But ultimately, they still got to come see us. Still got to play ball. I don't care what uniform you're wearing.
JG, Jalen Pitre has a good question: What were you feeding the defensive line?
Hmm. Opportunities. Like, whenever we get teams and often times when they didn't chip me, which was great, I was like, I kind of was licking my chops because I could finally get a true rush. But it didn't matter what they did. I mean, if I got chipped and we had guys and they get one-on-ones or inside, they just–we knew that they couldn't block us. Specifically, obviously inside for sure. But on the edges, we definitely had to take care of some opportunities.
I think he meant raw meat like you guys are animals.
1,000 percent. We'll take all the metaphors and all that. But like I said, we still got three games left. We've seen these things go completely left. So, we obviously still got a lot of work to do and still can mess this up at the same time. So, we got to make sure that we do everything on our side to put ourselves in the best situation moving forward.
You hate talking about this, but we have to: that sack total is piling up. 12 and a half. You've got to talk about it. I don't even have a question for you. It's piling up, right?
Listen, we will revisit this at end of the season when we tally them all up. But, at the end of the day, I mean, I'm just continuously going to continue to work, get the opps, and continue to work on my craft, so that way I can just continue to work on myself and be whatever, no matter who you put in front of me. I'm going to continue to do what I do. So, I'm going to continue to work and obviously we're going to continue to strive for them dubs and the sacks, and the stats and numbers will come.
