49ers
49ers DC Steve Wilks said he doesn’t plan on making any overhauling changes to San Francisco’s defensive system in his first season with the organization.
“I think you have to embrace the success that they’ve had here,” Wilks said, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN. “It is a foundation that we all agree we wanted to keep and I think it is an opportunity as we go through the process, which we already have, to try to tweak things a little bit. I still think there’s room for improvement.”
49ers RB Christian McCaffrey played under Wilks while he was the Panthers’ interim coach. The running back said Wilks had a lot of respect around Carolina’s locker room.
“Coach Wilks is awesome,” McCaffrey said. “It says a lot to see how all the Panthers players reacted to him and them vouching for him to get the head job. That’s a testament to who he is and that explains a lot about not just the coach he is, but the guy he is. Happy he’s on our side.”
49ers CB Isaiah Oliver said he’s been enabled to blitz more often in Wilks’ system.
“When people ask me if I’m playing nickel or outside corner more, that’s kind of one of the things I lean to is just being able to blitz more,” Oliver said. “I feel like it just adds so much more to the game and just be around the ball so much more. I like blitzing a lot. And then obviously he has a lot of different schemes, a lot of different things he can draw up for all of us.”
Cardinals
Cardinals QB Kyler Murray adopted a positive mindset while attacking his rehabilitation.
“It’s got to be a positive. There really is no option for it to be a negative,” Murray said, via Darren Urban of the team’s website. “I feel you get your little grace period right after it happens, dwell on it, soak in it, let the feelings take over. After that, (expletive), we gotta go. Life doesn’t stop. The job doesn’t stop. And I’m not going to stop.”
Murray is no longer worried about the past but focused on the future direction of the team.
“I’m thinking of stuff that I wasn’t part of, like the draft, who we were gonna get, young players coming out,” Murray said. “The whole (last) year was (expletive). It happened for a reason. The things we were doing weren’t sustainable for success. It was necessary and in turn good will come out of what happened.”
Murray expressed his frustration about the sequence of events that happened throughout his first few years in the league.
“To hit a wall Year 4, especially after going through the whole contract thing, the energy, the aura, the vibes going into the season were all negative,” Murray said. “Having to deal with all that stuff and trying to focus on football, and then I got Covid in camp, I hurt my wrist in camp so I missed a lot of reps, and having to play catch up in the season, starting with the Chiefs, it was kind of a compilation of (expletive)-up things going on.”
Murray also added that he’s confident in the future of the team under GM Monti Ossenfort and HC Jonathan Gannon.
“They are really investing in the organization and the team,” Murray said. “You run through a wall for that type of guy. That’s the energy he brings…I think winning cures all, and it’s been tough to do that with some of the circumstances we’ve had to deal with. But I think we are headed in the right direction.”
Seahawks
Seahawks WR D.K. Metcalf noticed a change in maturity in QB Geno Smith after he was named the starter last season.
“Just going into training camp, he’s the first one out there and the first one at the facility,” Metcalf said, via PFT. “He’s watching film. He’s not talking. He just had his head down and he’s working. Week Eight, he gave us a pregame speech and you could just see everyone locked in on him because they had seen how much he had matured and changed. He wasn’t the same Geno. He was like, ‘This is my team now. Ya’ll are gonna listen. I’ve put in the work and I’ve put in the time to where I have stapled my name in Seattle.’ And everybody just started to respect him.”
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Excited about Wilks,I think their last pick in the draft Jalen Graham embodies what Wilks likes in Defenders; Versatility ,Off Ball on Ball,Rushing the Passer or Covering TE’s and HBs in the flat, it’s all Gravy with this young Man.