Jaguars
Jaguars RB Travis Etienne spoke about the great feeling he has after finishing the 2022 season healthy. Etienne has missed his rookie year due to a painful Lisfranc injury and noted he is looking to bulk up ahead of 2023.
“I was really happy I was healthy this whole season,” Etienne told reporters, via JaguarsWire. “I just want to put on a little muscle mass, a little more weight, because those guys are really big.”
Texans
Texans CEO Cal McNair and his wife Hannah are currently working together to find the team a new head coach. According to McNair, they are “very happy” with how the process has played out up to this point.
“Very happy,” McNair told Aaron Wilson of KPRC 2. “There’s a lot of rules and things we need to follow, and we totally embrace those. It’s been a lot of fun, having interviews with the strong candidate list that we’ve had. We get to to ask them questions. They get to ask us questions. It’s been enlightening and fun and we’re looking forward to picking the right candidate for Houston.”
Titans
Titans WR Kyle Philips was disappointed in his rookie year, adding that he hoped he would be able to do more to contribute to the team.
“Disappointing,” Philips said, via Jim Wyatt of the team’s website. “Obviously I wanted to come in here and contribute more to the team, but injuries happened, and it was unfortunate. I couldn’t really control it. Overall, I would say I was disappointed because I would have liked to have helped more and contributed to this team winning more games.”
Phillips is using his disappointing rookie season to come out stronger next year and plans to focus on improving his game this offseason.
“I know I can play in this league, and play at this level,” Philips said. “I just know I left a lot out there this year, which gives me a lot of motivation coming into the offseason to come back and have a great season (in 2023). It was awful having to watch (so much as a rookie). You are with your teammates every day in the offseason, going through hell in the heat, going through training camp. You want to go to battle with your teammates, so to have to sit there and watch your teammates play and not being able to contribute, it eats away at you. But you just have to use it as motivation to get better.”
Phillips’ hamstring injury was hard for him to stomach, especially when he was just coming back from a shoulder injury.
“It was heartbreaking,” Philips said. “I was getting back in the flow, my shoulder wasn’t bothering me too much, and I felt comfortable. I was really excited about the game plan that week, and being able to help. It was definitely unfortunate, but looking back at it now, maybe it ends up being good for me in my young career to sit back and take those punches and learn from it all.”
Phillips started his final season at UCLA around 193 pounds but was around 180 at the start of his rookie year in Tennessee. He plans to put on weight to get back up to the 190 range.
“I want to be around 190 to 195 (pounds),” Philips said. “I want to come in here feeling good, feeling healthy, durable, fast, explosive. My main focus is getting big, staying explosive and getting a little more explosive. It’s a man’s league, and I am definitely not on the bigger side of the scale when it comes to that. So, I need to put some more muscle on me and be more durable for the season and just stay healthy.”
Phillips is confident in what his NFL future holds.
“Watching other guys, and seeing how they prepared and how hard they worked every day, going to practice and playing in these games,” Philips said. “Watching them really motivated me for this offseason to go full speed into it and come back better than ever. I just need to go into the offseason, get healthy, put some weight on and contribute more to this team.”
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