Rams QB Bryce Perkins – Media Availability – August 14, 2021
Rams QB Bryce Perkins – Media Availability – August 14, 2021
Do you think you’re about that height (inaudible) where you’re standing right now compared to us?
“Oh, man. I was up there. It was close.”
How did it feel for you tonight just getting back into that live action? What was important for you?
“It felt really good out there. I felt comfortable, confident. It definitely feels like coming up on this game that I haven’t played football, like live football in a while. I really wanted to come out here and really transition this last year, year and a half of practice and have it correlate. I tried to stay disciplined with my feet and my eyes and make plays when they were there. And then just be decisive and everything like that. I think it went pretty well.”
Your touchdown catch, is that a play where you had to resist running?
“No, I mean, we worked that play, we work a lot of stuff in individual with Coach (Kevin) O’Connell. It felt routine kind of getting back to that. As soon as I eliminated number one, I immediately came back and wanted to see where Trishton (Jackson) was. That was something that we rep. Coach does a great job repping us and making sure we’re most comfortable coming out here running the plays that we run.”
Can you share with us what it was like being on the field?
“I mean, it’s electric. You can hear it. It’s crazy because last year we didn’t have fans. And the one game I was on the field active, you could feel kind of a different energy change being on the field with no fans and being on the field with fans. It just makes playing that much better. We feed off the energy of the fans and it’s a beautiful stadium. It’s even more beautiful when it’s packed out.”
It looked like you were going to get one more shot there at the end of the game, one more drive.
“Yeah, we did. We were going over our two-minute menu. Kind of around three minutes we assumed it would be a two-minute drive. Didn’t play out like that but we were comfortable and ready to go.”
Someone long time and we’ve never seen a quarterback make a play like that for the Rams. What do you have to say?
“I mean, I was just trying to keep the chains moving. Had a third-down opportunity the previous drive that I could have just stuck the ball out, missed it, came up short by one yard. So being smart, trying to just keep the chains moving. And plays like those are just reactionary. You never really think that you’re going to do it coming up but it just happened and just try to give my team another set of downs.”
When you made that hurdle, did you feel the energy of your teammates? Did you feel that?
“Yeah I definitely felt it. And usually, I always tell my parents this, growing up high school and Pop Warner, when they’re closer, they always say they’re yelling at me, ‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me? And I always say ‘No, when I’m on the field usually I can’t hear anything.’ But after that play I heard it. It seemed like I heard everybody, everything, saw everybody. But it was awesome. It was a great energy boost and I’m glad that I could make that play for the team.”
Coming out and making a statement like that, does that weigh on you in any certain way and does that sort of feel like motivating for you in a certain way?
“Yeah, I mean, last year I really tried to do my best of just staying prepared with the game plans, being comfortable, not getting complacent and just sitting back and accepting the role. I think watching John Wolford, how he prepared as the backup role was great. And leading up to here, I just wanted to come out here and show some of my capabilities. It’s always different when it’s live and people have to tackle and everything like that. But I just take it one play at a time. This is great. I’m not going to get too caught up on one play or one drive because there’s more games to be played. And we just got to keep moving forward. But it was definitely fun getting out there tonight, making plays. And I’m looking forward to the next game.”
Did you feel confident with what you were seeing and also having the ball come out of your hand?
“Yeah, like I said, we repped, even when the reps were limited to Matthew (Stafford) and John (Wolford). In individual, we rep a lot of these plays, a lot of the footwork over and over and over. And Coach (Kevin) O’Connell does a great job staying on us about our feet that when you go out here, it tends to kind of get sloppy, you kind of forget some of your fundamentals. But we rep it so much in practice that it becomes ingrained in our heads about what we have to do with our feet. I went to him and just a strict practice individual, and the mindset that he instills in us.”