Dolphins
Dolphins DE Chop Robinson had 1.5 sacks, one tackle for loss, and five tackles in Week 13’s win over the Saints after going into the game with just one sack on the season. Robinson said he tried to play within himself and not do anything out of the ordinary.
“Just going out there and trying to play to the best of my ability,” Robinson said, via Joe Schad of the Palm Beach Post. “Just be who I am. It’s nothing I gotta’ do more, that’s what everybody told me. I don’t gotta’ go out of my zone to be who I’m not, just go out there and play my football.”
Robinson and LB Tyrel Dodson came up with the tackle of Saints QB Tyler Shough to stop them on 4th-and-1 with 35 seconds left in the game to solidify the win.
“I was grabbing him and I knew he wasn’t moving,” Robinson said. “And I felt T-Dot come in too, so I knew he didn’t get the first down. I knew the game was over.”
The Dolphins are on a three-game winning streak and have won four of their last five. Robinson credits their success to the team sticking together.
“I think the main thing is everybody just sticking together,” Robinson said. “Things weren’t going our way in the first half of the season. I think everybody just kept their eyes forward and just kept getting better every single day. So I think as a defense, everybody just stuck together and just got better. That’s the main message that (Weaver) has been saying to us.”
Jets
Jets K Nick Folk converted a 56-yard field goal to win Week 13’s game against the Falcons. When discussing how modern-day kickers are routinely making 50-plus-yard field goals, Folk said it is a result of the evolution of the position.
“As the entire locker room gets bigger, faster, stronger—or even, you go down to high school, where everyone’s getting bigger, faster, stronger—if you want to play and you’re not the biggest, fastest, strongest, but you’re pretty fast and pretty strong, you go kick, because you want to play,” Folk said, via Albert Breer of SI. “I was with Tennessee last year. We had a strength coach that was at the University of Arizona, my alma mater, and Tyler Loop obviously came from there. Now he’s with the Ravens. And I was asking him about Tyler. And he says Tyler Loop was like a 21.5-, 22-mile-an-hour guy. So the guy’s got explosion. You’re trying to keep up. That’s what it becomes. It’s just evolution, survival of the fittest.”
Folk said former NFL K John Carney influenced him to take working out seriously, and points out that modern kickers have begun training at an earlier age.
“I’m good friends with John Carney,” Folk said. “He played for 23 years. He was one of the first ones that I remember that actually took working out seriously. And talking to him about it, that’s what kept him around for so long. I just think these guys are doing that at an earlier age now. It’s just survival, to get on the football field when they’re young and they want to play—Well, I gotta be a kicker. So, all right.”
- Per Clarence Hill Jr., Cowboys owner Jerry Jones clarified that he offered former DE Micah Parsons to the Jets for DT Quinnen Williams and a first-round pick, not Parsons and a first-round pick for Williams.
- Jets DB Jarvis Brownlee Jr. (hip) and LB Marcelino McCrary-Ball (hamstring) have been ruled out for Week 14, per Rich Cimini.
Patriots
The Patriots have flipped the script in HC Mike Vrabel‘s first year with the team, going from a 4-13 record last year to 10-2 through 12 games this year. New England CB Carlton Davis reflected on Vrabel doing his best to keep things lighthearted and talked about a team-building exercise that has led to them being a close-knit group.
“That kind of alleviated all of the tension that may come into a football building,” Davis said, via ESPN’s Mike Reiss. “He came off being a cool guy, personable, players coach. Everybody kind of bought into it, and we kind of created this quick brotherhood and this bond between each other, where we want to play for each other. But we also want to play for him.”
“At the moment, I was like, ‘What are we doing?’ But through that, you saw guys come together and create camaraderie… I can’t say I’ve had a stronger bond anywhere else.”
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