How has C.J. Ham’s experience in the league helped the team so far?
We lost a lot of veteran leadership on the offensive side of the ball this offseason with the departure of Bitonio, Teller, and Njoku, so the emergence of Ham's leadership role is important. He is not only our oldest player on the roster, he is actually one of only 3 players on the entire offensive roster that older than 25. With a rookie looking to start at FB and our entire backfield being under 25, Ham's ability to bring professionalism into the meeting rooms every day has been vital.
How quickly can you tell if a young player is a football player if he thinks about it because it seems like at the Combine they’re all saying the right thing and it’s the job. How quickly does it take?
I feel like you can almost tell right away. Not everyone is going to get it in the meeting room. Frankly, some guys just aren't wired to pay attention or understand complex concepts in a classroom like setting, but then they step out between the white lines on the field and their instincts take over. Some of the brightest players I've been around surprise you at first on the field with how much they can pick up because they aren't that way in the meeting room. So you just have to get that first practice with them, and you'll know right away the kind of players you have.
Can you speak to the overall team health?
Our team is incredibly healthy right now. We only have 1 injury going into the regular season and it's a player that would not have started outside of special teams anyways. So this is a big relief to us and it's our first step we felt we needed to take to have the start to our season that we wanted
