S Grant Delpit (10.19.23)

 

What Rodney (McLeod) and Juan (Thornhill) brought to the secondary, just from a vet leadership, professionalism perspective, how have they helped you? 

“I think you just said it. Vet leadership and professionalism. So those guys have definitely helped me. It’s not my first year in the league, but those guys definitely come with some other knowledge and winning mentality.”

 

When you look at this Colts offense and Gardner Minshew having to take things over at quarterback, just what do you see? What are your observations. 

“Before going in the last week, he hadn’t threw a pick. The Jags got on him a little bit. It was a tough game for them. So I’m sure that he’s going to have that bounce back mentality and mentality to take care of the ball. So we reversing it. We got to go get it just like the Jags did last week and carry that momentum that we had from last week.”

 

This defense playing the way it is, how much confidence do you guys have that you can hold the fort down until whenever Deshaun does get back?

“We have all the confidence in the world, man. We know that what we bring to the table. We know we’re the best in the world. We go out there on the field with that mentality every snap. So we have a great week of practice. We had a great week practice last week. We had a great day yesterday, so we’re going to continue that.”

 

Can’t these games, if you have a backup quarterback, can that be an opportunity to prove what you guys are saying? That you’re the best in the world? 

“Yeah, of course. He’d been in league for a while now, so I wouldn’t consider him just new to the game, I think, but he knows what he’s doing. We do, too. So we carry the momentum.”

 

You guys were really good Sunday definitely, not perfect. I’m sure Coach (Jim) Schwartz goes out of his way to show the little things that didn’t go well? What does that mean to have that? A coach that’s on you all the time about doing the things it takes to win? 

“Yeah, he knows what it takes to win. That’s what we need. We know that we have a lot of things to clean up. Like, the last drive was not good enough. In my eyes, that could have lost us the game easily. So no matter how well we play throughout the whole game, have to play well when it matters. So like I said, it’s a lot of clean up, but victory is a victory. We’ll take it and move on.”

 

Grant, the guys on defense are getting a lot of love nationally and locally. You have to tamp it down a little bit not to let it get too much into your heads?

“Yeah, I don’t really see that issue, man. Good or bad, we flush it week to week, so we know that we have a reputation uphold now. Number one defense. With that in mind, man, we can’t have any slip ups. Like I said, that last drive last week wasn’t good enough, but we got to uphold that standard and start taking the ball away too.”

 

After the Tennessee game, that was a real good game defensively and Baltimore wasn’t, variety of reasons. Was the head issue at all a factor in performance against Baltimore defensively? 

“What issue?”

 

The head issue. Letting it get to you. The Success? Dealing with success. 

“No, I think that Baltimore had a good game plan. We came out flat and it’s a good experience to have. So now we know what we need to do. We can anybody. Not thinking too highly of ourselves. We just have to know what we have and what we can do and reset every week.”

 

You played a large chunk of you home schedule already. That means you’re going to play a lot of road games here coming up. 

“I love road games.”

 

What do you love about them? And how do you guys become a good road team? 

“Me, personally, I like road games. Going into somebody else’s environment and basically taking the fans out of the game as a defensive mindset. So I love making plays on the road, flying around, having fun with my guys, man, and seeing our fans in their stadium going crazy. So that’s the defensive mentality I have. And for office, I’m sure they want to go score touchdowns, turn it up in that way. But I always like road games, man, making plays, and it’s just fun.”

 

Jim (Schwartz) is so big on swagger and personality. How much of a part of that is it for you guys? Does the defense need to have some of that? 

“Of course. When guys flying around, man, having fun, you can see it. It relates to the film, it relates to everything. Good plays and guys just gelling together as a team, you can see it. That’s what great defenses have. They always tighten the locker room as well, and they always have fun on the field. So when you do your job, you can have some fun.”

 

Speaking of the attention that you guys are getting, like, I watched the thing with Micah Parsons yesterday, just like, raving about you guys. Did you see that? And what do you think of some of that kind of stuff? 

“No, I didn’t see that. What did he say?”

 

Oh, he just gave you guys the highest praise about what a dominant defense you are. I guess he’s got his own show. But JJ Watt has weighed in. So really good defenders like that are singing your praises. How does that kind of feel? 

“Yeah, it feels good. We got to keep it going. I know that the whole league is taking notice of what we’re doing. Every week, offense are going to go in and say who are we facing, and I say that this is the best defense. So we got to go out there and show them that.”

 

Did this defense come up with a nickname yet? 

“Nah. I’m going to leave that up to the fans. Up to yall. Whatever sticks, it sticks. Yeah, let it happen.”

 

Quarterbacks sometimes thought about pressing, trying too hard to make a play. Does that exist for defense? Can you guys force it? How does that work? 

“Trying too hard to make a play? Yeah, you can see that a lot in defenses. Guys trying to jump routes or guys kind of do anything out of the ordinary to go make a play. Sometimes that happens, man, and that’s not what you want.”

 

How do you avoid that? 

“You avoid it by doing your job. It’s simple if you think about it, but in the heat of the moment, sometimes that could happen. But just focus on every play, man. What you got to do instead of trying to do too much.”

 

Grant, what about Indianapolis’ offense. Schematically, have you seen something similar to what they’re going to present this year? 

“Well, yeah, it’s much different than last week. I’ll say that for sure. You know their coach came from Philly and they have some similarities there. But like I said, it’s in the NFL, man. So, of course there’s some similarities in certain games, but much different than last week.”

 

What kind of boost will it give you guys if Deshaun (Watson) can come back out there and play on Sunday?

“It’s going to be great. It’s going to be great if he can come back. We love four, we need four.  We riding behind him, if he plays or doesn’t play. We want him to be healthy at the end of the day. But whoever’s back there, we’re going to be behind him.”

 

You guys have a tough running back duo you have to try and slow down this week. Dalvin Tomlinson, what’s he met up front as far as making your job easier and the linebackers’ job easier in the game.

“DT’s a monster, man. He doesn’t get a lot of praise. He had like one tackle last game, but cut on the tape, he’s everywhere. He’s disrupting. He’s in the backfield. And that frees up our linebackers to make plays. So we do have two tough running backs this week. We have the leading rusher in the AFC. And Jonathan Taylor. We already know what he could do. So it’s going to be a good challenge for our run defense.”

 

 

 

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