49ers
49ers LB Eric Kendricks said the lack of interest in him during free agency fueled him to reinvigorate his career.
“I don’t want to say it was anger, but it was motivating,” he said of the tepid interest, via The Athletic. “It was like, ‘I’ve been the underdog through parts of my career.’ And it kind of felt like I was going back into that category. It was, ‘Damn, I’m getting slept on again.’”
Kendricks also played through a shoulder injury through most of last season that caused him to require surgery in January, which caused apprehension around him in free agency.
“Teams look at every freakin’ thing!” he said. “I’m not going to say it didn’t affect it. Listen, if I had shut myself down early, if I had kept playing, if I had gotten another year of age — they look at every freakin’ thing.”
Rams
- Rams HC Sean McVay told reporters that RG Kevin Dotson would start against the Bears. (Barshop)
Seahawks
The Seahawks put on a dominant performance over the 49ers, with QB Sam Darnold and HC Mike Macdonald speaking to reporters after the game about what went right.
“Really good team win from the first snap,” said Darnold, via ESPN. “The kickoff, [ Shaheed] taking it to the house, that was special. To hear that stadium too, rocking the way it was tonight, unbelievable, man. The 12s came out. It was fun. Our defense doing their thing. And as an offense too, the ball control, I feel like that was huge for us all game and finishing in the red zone.”
“I felt great. Felt great. I felt good, and if I did get hurt, I feel like you all would have probably known about it,” Darnold added when asked about his health. “So no, I felt really good the entire game. And any hits I did take I didn’t feel it on that side.”
“Tremendous,” Macdonald said of Darnold. “There was a couple of plays early that I think [it took him] to get in the swing of things. But I say ‘manage’ the game as a very high-powered compliment. Just throwing it on time, taking care of the ball, making the plays when we need to. I think there’s going to be some explosives out there that maybe we could get to. But shoot, I thought there’s a lot of operation stuff that he did that really helped us as well.”
“It was a heck of a win, man,” Macdonald added. “In the locker room, we’re really excited, we’re very proud of the effort, and the guys understand that there’s still a mission at hand. We’ve got another week coming up here that we need to take care of business every day, and that’s the focus. Proud of the group. We’ll celebrate today, guys will be off tomorrow and be back on Monday.”
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