Head Coach Jerod Mayo 12/24: "This is a [Chargers] team that reminds me of the old school way of playing"

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Jerod Mayo (0:30)

Good morning.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. And happy holidays to everyone. You know, definitely the holiday season, time to really be around family and really just tell people how much you appreciate them. I always grew up where it wasn't really always about the gifts. Didn't get many gifts as a kid. You know, my kids are growing up totally different than me, but it is what it is. You know, my message to the team was, look, this is a huge week as far as being able to compartmentalize when we're in the building. It's all about football. When they're outside the building, obviously they need to spend time with their family. And it's all about family at that time. And being able to do that, I think is good to have a balanced life. You know, the unsung heroes, all the people who are doing the shopping, taking it off of our plates here. So just wanted to give them a shout out because I couldn't imagine right now going into the stores or wrapping gifts. It's never really been my thing. Moving on, this is a very good football team, a team that honestly reminds me of the old school way of playing, going out there playing good defense, solid base technique, being able to stop the run, having those playmakers over there. And offensively, they have a great quarterback in Herbert. But really, this team also up front, they're very talented across the board up front. And I think they work very well together, especially in the run game. And as the weather changes and they're coming out this way, I expect them to try to run the ball, and especially how we looked last week. And so that's the challenge to the players that, well, they're gonna come in here, there's no secret, they're gonna wanna run the ball, and we have to stop them and make them a one-dimensional team. Good running backs obviously is a huge Baltimore Raven type of flavor to this entire staff and even the players. You look at the backs that they have, a couple of them came from Baltimore. We've gone against Greg Roman multiple times over the years. He's a very good coordinator, very experienced, and he's gonna exploit your weaknesses, and I think they do a good job with that. Defensively, I've been a fan of this player for a while. He always pops off the film, is Derwin James. I think he's just one of those guys that, he's a football player, and you can tell by the way that he goes out there and plays, just his energy and enthusiasm, and the rest of the crew kind of follows his lead, in my opinion. Not to take anything away from the front guys, they have two very good defensive ends, and they have some big guys up front that do a good job to gapping. But I think it all starts with Derwin, and I think we have to know where this guy is on every single play. If he's down near the line of scrimmage, he can absolutely rush and drop from there. If he's in the back half, he can play a deep part of the field as well. So, definitely a very good player. Look, for us, we got to be able to stay balanced, and we got to stay ahead of the sticks, stay ahead of the chains. And again, this is another opportunity against a team that really don't turn the ball over much for us to go out there and try to get after it. So, fire away.

SPEAKER_6 (3:34)

You just mentioned that you know that they're going to run into all the physical weather.

Jerod Mayo (3:37)

Well, not because I'm not... They're going to be pretty balanced, is what I would say. I would say they would...

I don't know what the weather is going to be. I think it's actually going to be pretty nice. I think the last I checked, but we're good. Sorry.