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Interviews - FROM A TO Z WITH DAN CODY
Ravens LB talks about his injury, the coming season and much more
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Posted On: 5/3/06
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Tony Lombardi: Dan, tomorrow is the NFL Draft. A year ago you were sitting and waiting for your name to be called. Talk about that day last year, how you felt waiting and then finally hearing the Ravens call your name.
Dan Cody: I think that the longest part of it was all the days leading up to the draft. The actual day of the draft was the least stressful day. I don’t know why it really panned out like that. I guess through the whole process leading up to that day, it seemed like I was kind of slipping pretty steadily each week and everybody had all these questions and I didn’t have any answers and no one could really understand that. But once the day finally got there I was with my family, you know and it was a real laid back deal. You know it went by really quick. You would think that some guys had an even longer wait than me and some guys that were drafted higher than me probably felt their wait was longer than mine but once 53 rolled around and I got that call from the Ravens, it was a good moment but it was short lived because shortly thereafter we were heading back out there for rookie mini-camp.
TL: Who from the Ravens made the call to you and what do you remember most about that conversation?
DC: Ozzie Newsome is the one who made the call and I’ll tell you what I remember most is him asking me if I was going to get him 10 sacks or not.
TL: We know you missed your rookie season due to the knee injury. How is the rehab coming along and do you expect to be at full strength by the start of summer camp?
DC: The first day of training camp probably not even 25 or 30 minutes into practice…
TL: I remember watching and when it happened I said I don’t even think he was hit.
DC: Yeah exactly! A grass monster got me! You know there was a period there of about 3 or 4 weeks when I was sort of flapping in the wind and they didn’t know if my ACL was torn because you know MRI’s aren’t always 100%. The only real way to tell is to go in there with the surgery and the plan was if it wasn’t torn they were just going to scope it and go from there. They were pretty sure that it was but obviously they couldn’t give me a definite answer. Even going into the surgery they said “You’re gonna wake up and either your going to have an ACL reconstruction or your just going to be scoped.”
And that would have put me at about the eighth or ninth week of the season before I was good to go so I was in limbo there for awhile and it was pretty nerve racking. But I once I woke up and knew exactly what had happened, it made the process – you know to start rehabbing, I knew what I had to do.
The first two months of it were pretty surreal. I had been injured and missed a game here and there before but nothing that required reconstructive surgery. So it was kinda surreal for awhile and then towards the end of the season I was finally able to start to move around and go indoor and start running around on it. Nothing serious, just running straight ahead.
The time as a whole went by real fast but there were some days that were a lot longer than others. But each day I got a little healthier and got to be a little active and proactive. I got to do some things in the weight room and as far as running goes – the guys here had a long season so for the most part the players were gone so I got a lot of one on one time will Bill Tessendorf and Jeff Friday. I couldn’t pick two better guys to be able to work with in terms of all that. And these guys gave me a lot of attention and put a lot of their time into me and I’ve tried to invest as much as I can into them. Mini camp is starting up here in two weeks and should be able to do everything. Of course we get a little bit of grace there because we don’t have full pads on. If we had full pads I might be limited in what I can do right away. But leading into mini camp I should be able to do everything.
TL: Your whole life you play the game of football and work towards your dream. You finally get to the NFL and you can’t go due to injury. I’m sure that was frustrating. Talk about what your season was like last year in terms of classroom sessions with your unit. What did you learn and how might you apply it in 2006?
DC: What we did last year defensively…maybe there will be some things that change and I think that holds true for any pro team. Not 100% of what you did the year before is carried over to the next year. But I think one of the biggest things you can take away if you are hurt is to learn how the coaches work and what they expect out of their players. It’s not so much sitting down and learning the X’s and O’s because the fundamentals of the game are never going to change. But learning what is expected of this defense – it’s not a shock but you do take a step back and it’s like wow!
This is a real serious business and learning what these guys expect of you is one of the biggest things you can take from your down time because then there’s no excuse for not being ready, especially having as much time as I’ve had off to rehab and get ready again.
TL: Eric DeCosta told me that he had you ranked as the 25th best player overall yet you slipped to No. 53 in the draft where the Ravens were all too happy to take you. It seems that every year, the players are poked and prodded until teams can find some excuse to lessen a player’s value. With you last year, they pointed at bouts of depression and medication to offset the depression. Talk about that a bit…was a bigger deal made of that than necessary and is all of that behind you?
DC: It is definitely all behind me, I can promise you that! I think it was a combination of things. A lot of people had questions, [about] the friends I had, the guys I was running around with…all it takes is one rumor and it doesn’t matter if you do anything or not. If there’s a rumor that you are running or hanging out with a bad crowd or being a little injury prone. I hadn’t taken medicine for 2 ½ to 3 years leading up to the draft and still that was a problem. I couldn’t figure that out for anything.
But I don’t think that it’s one particular thing. It just kind of adds up like and equation. This depression plus running around with this crowd and having a few injuries, they put it all together and like you said, they try to find each and every thing that they can and they’ll blow up one if all they can find is one thing, they’ll blow it up as much as they can.
TL: I’ve always said that the draft would look so much different if they did it the day after the last collegiate game was played.
Yes, oh my God yes!
TL: You wear No. 53. Is that a reminder for where you were picked in the draft or just a coincidence?
DC: It’s just a coincidence. I started out with No. 94 but I didn’t want to wear a 90 number – that was just too much d-lineman for me. I was going to be playing linebacker so I wanted a linebacker number and they stuck me with No. 53. So it worked out like that and I think that I like it. I’m glad it worked out that way, it’s pretty neat.
TL: Some times things work out the way they are supposed to. So when you’re out there on the field and you look down at that No. 53, it’s a reminder that you should have been the No. 25 pick in the draft -- I’ll show those guys [who passed me up].
DC: Yeah exactly!
TL: Two players talked about a ton in this year’s draft are Vince Young and Matt Leinart. You’ve faced both and if I’m not mistaken you sacked Vince Young. Talk about those players and which impresses you the most.
DC: I think from a NFL perspective, you read a lot about both of them. I think the thing that separates Vince Young from Matt Leinart for me is that I think [Young] is a more durable player. I think Leinart has got this California deal in him and I’m not saying he isn’t tough but I think Vince being from Texas, I’ve seen a lot of film. I’ve seen Vince take a lot more hits than Leinart has. I’ve seen him have his ankle rolled up on where it looked like they just broke his foot off but then he’d come back the next week against us and rush for 150-200 yards and throw for another 100.
I can remember me having two missed tackles against him on the same play! I think that being bigger, stronger and more durable [gives him] more worth than Matt Leinart has in the long run.
TL: I always say that players know players and there are a couple others I’d like to talk about. Two USC offensive linemen, Lutui and Matua. I don’t believe you played against Winston Justice. What do you remember about Lutui and Matua from the Orange Bowl?
DC: Offensive linemen from what I’ve learned that oftentimes when they get to the next level, some of them will excel and some will flop. I don’t think that the good players that I’ve seen, not many are tweeners. Those two guys, I don’t think that they play the physical game that is played in the NFL. But I think that a lot of the linemen that I’ve played against, those are two of the better [ones.]
TL: By the time folks hear this interview, your former Sooner teammate Davin Joseph will be a member of some NFL team. Tell us a little about Joseph.
DC: When I think about [Joseph] I think about the things I was saying about Vince [Young]. [He’s] strong and durable and the guy was a national high school heavyweight wrestling champ and he came in as a d-linemen. I worked with him. He was d-line early and then they moved him to offensive line. Sometimes that defensive mentality and that wrestling mentality – you know like Kelly Gregg. And then to put him on the offensive side of the ball, those arms drag the ground…I think that his potential to me is through the roof.
Now I think that he may have slumped a little bit his senior year. I don’t know if he had the right attitude coming into his senior year but that doesn’t mean he won’t be successful in the NFL. From the guys I’ve seen come through Oklahoma…I’ve seen a few guys that slumped their last season because they are looking ahead which sometimes can be easy to do especially if you’ve got people feeding it into your ear every day. But those guys have a tendency, that when they get to the next level they look at it from a professional aspect and they really take off. I don’t think he’ll be any exception.
TL: Getting back to you Dan, what do you expect your role to be this year on the Ravens defense?
DC: You know for awhile I thought I might be kind of a third down guy. Not that I’m some supreme pass rusher but I thought that it might be where I work in on the field the most. But now we might be playing with four or five linebackers and hopefully, I’ll be playing a lot of Sam linebacker. I think that putting me at Sam is going to give them an opportunity to move Adalius Thomas around a lot more and you know his game is moving around all over the place. If I can free him up to do that and play Sam, defensive end and rush the quarterback on third down, I think uh, it’s hard to say until we get into game time situations but I think that is the plan as of now.
TL: Do you expect to play any special teams?
DC: I’m planning to play on all of them – that’s all I know (laughs).
TL: Eric DeCosta often compares young players to others in the NFL to gain a sense of how a player might perform in the pro game. Who would he say that you most resemble in the NFL and who do you most aspire to play like in the NFL?
DC: A guy that I’ve always loved to watch is Leonard Little, DE for the St. Louis Rams. He’s a great combination of finesse and speed and strength and just flat out playing like an animal. You see being able to play hard with a lot of intensity on every snap gives you an opportunity to separate yourself. Everybody is talented. At this level everybody plays hard too but even in the NFL there are guys that don’t. And when you really lay it out on the field every time it’s always going to stick out and people are always going to respect you for that.
TL: Ray Lewis was recently on ESPN and talked about how he misses those big hefty tackles in front of him to eat up blockers. From my perspective, it doesn’t matter how big the player is but whether or not they command attention in the form of double teams. In the Ravens defense do you think it really matters if a tackle is 300 pounds or 350 for your linebackers to be effective?
DC: No it’s not imperative it’s just how you play. If you’ve got a guy that is going to be a little bit lighter, I think it’s important that he plays with a little more technique and a little more sound game than someone who was 350 pounds or whatever. It’s very important that he takes to coaching and understands the scheme and all we are trying to do just because the simple physics of him alone are going to prevent him from doing what a 350 pound lineman can do.
But fortunately our guys up front take to coaching very well and I don’t think that will be any different this year.
TL: Dan you’ve been working at the complex very intensively along with many of your teammates. Is there a sense amongst you that the team has something to prove in 2006 and if so what is the team’s mindset at this time?
DC: It’s not so much that we have anything to prove to anybody else except all of us here. I think that last season was last season and you only want to look back on it and take the good things you learned and what you can improve on and I think there are a lot of things that we can improve on this year. But I think the biggest thing that guys are going to learn from last year is an improvement in morale and attitude and how we’re going to approach things. You can see it as we get closer to mini-camp that there’s been more and more guys in. You can just tell with the attitude that the guys are having fun yet at the same we’re working really hard.
TL: Dan you have to be chomping at the bit to get back on the field. Tell us about some of your goals for the coming season.
DC: During my college seasons I would set out these goals and sometimes you don’t reach them. My goal [this season] is to gain the respect of the players that I’m playing with and going out there to establish myself. Going out there to be on the field on first and second down not just third down; playing special teams and not being tired. I think the little things like that are going to get my foot in the door and get a name for myself around here.
TL: Dan thanks….all the best to you in 2006. Stay healthy!
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Posted On: 5/3/06
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