Speaker 1: Welcome to the Command Center Podcast. I'm Julie Donaldson. Wide
Speaker 1: receiver Terry McLaurin is heading back to his hometown for
Speaker 1: the first time in his NFL career. He spoke on
Speaker 1: what that homecoming means to him. I try to do
Speaker 1: a good job of just focus on what's really important. Um,
Speaker 1: winning this game is the most important thing. But I'd
Speaker 1: be lying if I say it's not kind of cool
Speaker 1: to be able to go back to where I grew
Speaker 1: up kind of where my affinity of football started. Was
Speaker 1: fortunate to win a few state championships in Indianapolis that stadium,
Speaker 1: went a few Big ten championships in that stadium, grew
Speaker 1: up a colts fencing it in Section five forty with
Speaker 1: my dad. So I had a lot of memories about Indianapolis, and, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be cool to be able to be on
Speaker 1: the field, you know what I mean. Like, really, as
Speaker 1: an opposing player, that's kind of crazy. But it's just
Speaker 1: it's reflecting on that as like how blessed I've been,
Speaker 1: how how good guy's been in my life, And you
Speaker 1: just never know where your journey is going to be.
Speaker 1: You couldn't have told me when I was seven years
Speaker 1: old that I wouldn't be playing in the NFL and
Speaker 1: to be able to come back and share that moment
Speaker 1: with my family and my close friends, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I want to win this game. I want to keep
Speaker 1: our win streak going, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think they pose as a really good team. They're really
Speaker 1: disciplined on defense, and I know, you know, they have
Speaker 1: a new quarterback, but he's going to probably give them
Speaker 1: a lot of energy. So we have to go in
Speaker 1: there and and limit the negative plays and get off
Speaker 1: to a fast start on the road. The Commanders look
Speaker 1: to move to five hundred on the season and this
Speaker 1: weekend's road game against the Indianapolis Colts. Santana Marles and
Speaker 1: Logan Paulson shared some of the head to head matchups
Speaker 1: they will be looking out for. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of high expectations for the Indianapolis native to go out
Speaker 1: there and perform. And I think it could tell he
Speaker 1: was he was kind of almost getting like a little
Speaker 1: emotional thinking about that. But how cool to be, you know,
Speaker 1: a young man or a boy, I guess dreaming of
Speaker 1: playing the NFL and he finally will get that chance, Santana.
Speaker 1: Is it a challenge to kind of put that mindset
Speaker 1: away because he's going to be going up against probably
Speaker 1: stuff on Gilmore and we know what he's capable of doing.
Speaker 1: It might be a challenge in the sense, but I
Speaker 1: think when you have a guy that's as focused as Terry,
Speaker 1: you know, he goes out there all about business. So
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that he's gonna embrace the moment knowing that, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm home, my family's here, this is where it all started.
Speaker 1: That But at the end of the day, I have
Speaker 1: a guy a cross from me who's all pro in
Speaker 1: all right, and I have to go out here and
Speaker 1: compete in battle and make sure that I do what
Speaker 1: I had to do for my team. So I know
Speaker 1: Terry's gonna go out there about his business. But it's
Speaker 1: great that he's gonna opportunity. I had plenty of those opportunities,
Speaker 1: so I handled it a little differently. But just talking
Speaker 1: to him this week, you can tell that he's looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. Thinks that about seventy in attendance that
Speaker 1: they got tickets for, but he already did it ahead
Speaker 1: of time. But that's a lot of people you want
Speaker 1: to put up a good show against as well, so
Speaker 1: we know he's going to be locked in if we
Speaker 1: go defensively. John Allen has been locked into all season long.
Speaker 1: Their offensive line is still kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: not what you'd expect. Is this a good day for John?
Speaker 1: I think it's a huge day for John. I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to see John Gold against Quintin Nelson. I think
Speaker 1: Quintin Nelson's not playing like Quintin Nelson of old. Maybe
Speaker 1: the best guard in the NFL, that's not him anymore.
Speaker 1: But it's always fun to see those big names come
Speaker 1: together and kind of duke it out. And with John
Speaker 1: playing the way is such a high level in pain too,
Speaker 1: he deserves a ton of credit. I think they're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to really take advantage of that interior group
Speaker 1: for Indianapolis. And again, they're probably gonna run the football
Speaker 1: at Indianapolis, and so can those two guys show up
Speaker 1: and make their presence felt I think one thousand percent.
Speaker 1: So I think Alan takes advantage of of a kind
Speaker 1: of declining Quintin Nelsons at this point. You know, Matt
Speaker 1: Ryan back there, you'd hear Indie say, look, he was
Speaker 1: like a statue. It's why he took so many sacks.
Speaker 1: And they need somebody who has a little bit more mobility.
Speaker 1: And so we'll see. But Quintin Nelson's going to have
Speaker 1: two sacks and two penalties so far this year. Um, offensively,
Speaker 1: the offensive line is going to go up against some
Speaker 1: really good tackles those Tana Yeah. I mean you have
Speaker 1: Stewart and Buckner, and both of these guys are what
Speaker 1: top five in the league right now when it comes
Speaker 1: to tackles. And if you think about Stewart just had
Speaker 1: one of the one of the best games in Week seven,
Speaker 1: you know that any d line has had this year.
Speaker 1: So I think our offensive line has really been kind
Speaker 1: of our trajectory is being going in the right direction
Speaker 1: the last few weeks. Our running backs has been playing
Speaker 1: pretty well, and I think in order for us to
Speaker 1: have a good opportunity to win this game, we have
Speaker 1: to run the ball well. So it's going to be
Speaker 1: a big challenge making sure that we can do so
Speaker 1: with those two guys on dub posing side and Brian
Speaker 1: Robinson being back has really added to the run game.
Speaker 1: They're averaging one hundred and forty seven rush yards in
Speaker 1: the last two weeks. How will they do against their
Speaker 1: linebackers this week. I mean, I think this group is
Speaker 1: really dynamic. They're very very fast, selective defensive line. They're
Speaker 1: very very fast, very athletic, they run to the football well.
Speaker 1: They played this nice eight man front. They know where
Speaker 1: they fit in that front. So it's going to be very,
Speaker 1: very challenging. But we have two tremendous athletes on our team,
Speaker 1: and I think with the scheme that Scott Turner can cultivate,
Speaker 1: let's make those guys question their assignments and see if
Speaker 1: they can HiT's a big place. It was exciting to
Speaker 1: watch the second half of that game, the way that
Speaker 1: they made adjustments after a little bit of a shaky start.
Speaker 1: So now with Taylor Heineke taking all the snaps with
Speaker 1: the first team in the roups with them, we'll see
Speaker 1: how much more sinkey is this week in Indy. For
Speaker 1: all of your news and analysis, be sure to tune
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