On the Peanut Punch:How did you come up with your method of knocking the ball out?
“Just thinking outside the box. I don’t like to think of myself as a big guy. I don’t possess that hard hitting capability like Luke [Kuechly] or Thomas Davis or some of those guys. I’m not really good at separating the man from the ball, so I figure why not punch it out? I just try to do something different and unconventional.”
Is it a five-finger punch, full fist?
“I don’t know how many fights you’ve been in. I don’t know how many people punch like this (holding out three fingers). You can’t punch with a finger. It’s not good if you’ve been in any fights. You’ve just got to make a fist and punch it. Sometimes you get lucky, and the ball comes out.”
Is there always a vulnerable spot on the ball?
“Yeah, I don’t believe in the pressure points. I feel like that’s a bunch of BS, I feel like I can get it out every time. That’s my mindset, I don’t care if you have two hands, one hand [on the ball], I’m going to get it out. It might not come out all the time, but I think like that.”
Have you missed and punched an arm or other body parts?
“Yeah, I’ve punched arms. I’ve punched helmets when guys get real low, and they try to cover up the ball. It’s all a part of the process. It’s like a boxer, where they might throw 700 punches and only land 400 of them. I know the more punches I throw, the more likely the ball will come out.”
How many teammates have started to use it?
“I think a lot of them are. Our DBs and linebackers are starting to strip the ball more. I think it’s carrying on. It’s not me; it’s them doing it. I just tried it once, and they saw it and said ‘Wow, it’s that easy’, and then they tried it and they’re getting it out, too.”
On Luke Kuechly compared to Brian Urlacher?
“The same, if not better. Brian obviously was really great in his prime. Father Time catches up to us all. Right now, Luke is very young and very active, very explosive, very fast; he’s got a lot of power and speed. He reminds me a lot of Brian back in the ’03-’06 era.”
On the Panthers’ defense:
“The secondary and the front four are a marriage, a husband and wife. We go hand-in-hand. If my front four is terrible, then I have to cover longer, and the quarterback has more time to throw the ball or has more time to sit in that pocket. On the back end, if the DBs are terrible, it’s not giving our line enough time to get to the quarterback. The better the front four, the better the back four. We go hand-in-hand like a marriage. Sometimes when we cover longer, we give them a little more time to get to that quarterback and get that sack. Sometimes when I make a mistake, and I need our D-line to get pressure or get that sack, they get it.”
On gelling with new team:
“TD gave me a hand signal and I had absolutely no clue what it was. He went like this (waves hands like two guns being fired), and I looked at him like it was a foreign language. I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ Why are you shooting me, bang, bang.?’ Then afterward we talked, and he was like ‘I’m going to give you this signal’, and I was like all right. It’s training camp; that is what this time is for … Once the season gets here, and someone does this (gun shot signal) then I know exactly what he’s doing, what we’re doing together.”
On his constant coaching of teammates:
“I don’t want to be here if I’m keeping secrets. We’re not here, and I’m not here just to try to better myself. I’m here to try to help better this team … If me giving this guy a tip can help him make us better in a game, well hey, I did my part, and he did his part for listening. That made us better. It made our team better.”
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