Running back Josh Jacobs hurt his knee against the New York Giants and missed the game against the Minnesota Vikings.
How do you feel about Metlife’s turf?
Definitely the worst. It’s always been the worst. I know if I ever play there again, I will never talk about it because I talked about it all week, how bad it was, and it bit me.
Swelling?
Yeah, it’s mostly just the swelling. I’m truly really like day to day, like really day to day, but I also know me. I’mma always try to go. I never really believe in missing games or anything like that.
When did you get hurt?
Second play of the game.
Just hit your knee on the ground?
Yeah, it was just hitting it, and when you hit any part of your knee, when it swells up, you can’t really bend it. So that’s the thing. I could play through the pain, but I couldn’t really get through the motion; so that’s the thing, and I couldn’t really run. I even felt myself, like a couple of them runs I got afterwards, I was kinda protecting it a little bit and I was not running like how I run, and that was my biggest thing. I didn’t wanna be a hindrance to the team.
Relief the injury isn’t worse?
I think that was the biggest thing, because the way it felt, I’m like it’s no way that nothing is wrong. Even looking at my MRI, just seeing how much swelling and stuff I had in there, that was just the main thing, and really now today it’s already 50%, probably 60% of the swelling is gone. It’s just about getting the range of motion back.
How much pain were you in?
It’s funny you say that ‘cause my dad called me and that was the first thing. He said, ‘I know you was hurting for real, because I know you’ and he was like, ‘I see you was trying to battle through it,’ but it was one of them things where I was trying to battle through the initial hit.
I was like, ‘Ahhh,’ but … sometimes, especially in this league, when you get hurt, you feel it for a little bit and it eases up or it just stays where it’s at. And it was one of them things where it was aggressively just getting worse and worse, and I was like, ‘Ahhhh.’
I really was like I don’t know if I can do it and obviously on that surface, too, that was another thing. But yeah, the pain — it was up there. It was up there. Even now, I feel good. I could walk. I could run and things like that. I’m not gonna say I’m 100%, but I’ve definitely made a lot of strides.
What’s allowed Emmanuel Wilson to become a reliable option?
First thing I would say is, I love the guy, man. As much as he works, how hard he works, but not only that, man, he’s very coachable. I mean he comes up to me probably every day and asks me something that I think he should work on or what did I see on this play or how do I view certain plays and things like that.
He’s willing to learn, and he always tries to implement that into his game, and I always try to tell him, man, just be who you are. Keep running how you running. Make sure you’re running hard and just be who you are and have fun. At the end of the day, you wouldn’t be able to be here in this position if you couldn’t ball and if you wasn’t one of those guys.
I think the biggest thing for him is just having that confidence. Making sure he’s 100% in the playbook with everything that he needs to do to get his job. He’s going to do his thing. He’s a good back.
