49ers
49ers WR Ricky Pearsall said that his approach is still the same, even though he’s expected to take on a larger role within the offense this season.
“I feel like my mindset-wise is not changing at all,” Pearsall said, via 49erswebzone. “I’m gonna attack it the exact same way. No matter what place I’m at, whatever the coach tells me, I still have that wide receiver one mindset, and that’s just how I was raised. I’ve always been a hard worker. My parents raised me that way, and I’ve always had that same mindset. No matter what position you’re in, whether you’re in the depth chart or whatever it is, that’s how I just attack my life in general.”
Pearsall added that there’s a healthy in the team’s locker room between competition and camaraderie.
“There’s always competition,” Pearsall said. “We always push each other. We’re super close off the field, but when it’s time to put our cleats on, and put our helmets on, and go on the field, we know it’s go-time. Me and Jacob always talk about it—before every practice, we tell each other one thing that we’re trying to work on that day, and we just get each other hyped before. And that’s what it’s about. It’s about competing.”
Pearsall hopes to carry a strong second half of his rookie season into his sophomore campaign.
“It was very important for me,” Pearsall reflected. “I feel like, throughout the entire year, I’ve been really confident in my abilities to go out there and perform like that, and as soon as I was called upon to step into that role, I was just making plays, and the opportunities were given to me. And as far as like confidence moving forward, it definitely was a boost to that. But yeah, it was good for me to have those two games.”
Cardinals
Following the trade from the Eagles to the Cardinals, DE Josh Sweat is ready to take on a leadership role atop the defensive line group.
“I embrace it too,” Sweat said, via Zach Gershman of the team’s website. “At the end of the day, everybody should be a leader, but I just want to help change whatever I can to make it better.”
Being back in a familiar defense with HC Jonathan Gannon and DC Nick Rallis, Sweat spoke on how free he felt playing in that system and feels he will get back to speed in no time.
“It was a certain element of freedom. The scheme, you can play fast, so picking it up was pretty easy. It’s not going to take me long at all. It’s the same thing.”
Rams
Last season, the Rams were a few plays away from knocking off the eventual Super Bowl champs in the Divisional Round of the playoffs. Heading into 2025, Los Angeles HC Sean McVay has the utmost faith in this iteration of the team’s ability to make a deep postseason run this season.
“What I would say is I’m very optimistic about what our chances to be able to come together and to be able to impact each other in a positive way,” McVay said, via the team’s YouTube. “And you know as well as I do, want to be able to hopefully stay as healthy as we possibly can but I think the way that these guys are impacting one another, the way that we’re impacting each other, I think it’s got a chance to be a really special group. I feel like I say it almost every year where you’re as excited as you’ve ever been but there’s a lot of real reasons to feel that way and we’re looking forward to swinging and I think kind of like we ended the last season, there was a lot of things guys can be proud of. We know every year is a new year, but there’s a lot of special people that I think give you a chance because it’s all about people and when you’ve got the right people, now how do we come together? And we’re looking forward to that.”
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