The team is on quite a win streak currently, can you explain the preparation the team has gone through this season so far in order to achieve this amount of success?
This isn't the first time we have had this kind of regular season success, but I do feel that our winning this season looks different than last year's. Last season we had a pretty easy schedule with only 4 playoff opponents on the entire schedule throughout the season. This led to a lot of blowouts and the privilege of resting starters in the 4th quarter of 14 of our 17 games. However, it felt like our team wasn't as battle-tested as it needed to be for the playoffs, and we weren't experienced with trying to win games in the final minutes.
This season has been different, and in our first 7 games we have already shown the grit to make 3 2nd half comebacks including a 31-0 comeback against the Patriots who had knocked us out of the playoffs last season. I felt like that was the turning point of our team. The feeling in our locker room is that there isn't anything we can't overcome or come back from. We know how to win and that belief is what we are leaning on.
Can you summarize what it was like playing against the Dolphins last week?
It was a little frustrating, I felt like we could have played much better especially on defense. We usually do an excellent job on 3rd down defense and getting our opponent off the field but the Dolphins kept moving the chains on us even in 3rd & long situations. The hardest part about that is it kept our offense off the field for a large part of the game, especially in the first half. But our Redzone defense came through for us time and time again and that gave us confidence that even a 10+ play drive couldn't find the end zone against our defense.
How do you see the competition level in the AFC North currently?
I honestly think our division is one of the best in the entire league. Maybe even THE best. We are at the top right now and undefeated, but obviously Curt and Silent have been tearing it up with incredible passing attacks so far this season. Curt has done wonders with Zach Wilson this entire cycle and he only seems to be getting better and his team is getting better. Silent had a god-awful start to his PML career but since then he has won 5 of his last 6 games and even had some wins against good opponents in there. He has proven to be a very good passer despite a high number of interceptions. Arod had a great start to the season but he has been sputtering the last few weeks and he just sold off a lot of his top players for draft picks so something tells me that his season won't be ending with the same type of momentum that it started with.
