Austin Ekeler was glad to get his feet wet against Dallas, so to speak, before the Commanders begin their playoff run in Tampa on Sunday.
However, even off the field, Ekeler is one of several veterans on this team with playoff experience, and he has been waiting to impart some of that wisdom on his younger, less-savvy colleagues.
“As far as preparation, our week will look exactly the same, it'll feel like another week of NFL football for us, but kind of the hype and the feeling around the game is definitely different. That’s the difference, is now you know it's do or die time,” Ekeler told G&D Monday. “This is playoff football, and the trip to the summit, which is the Super Bowl, takes four 4 stops for us to get to it. So as far as the conversation with the rookies and young guys, you don't wanna make anything bigger than it is as far as the preparation, but the feeling around it still feels good. It’s like, this is a privilege to be able to play in these games, so that kind of takes care of itself just from the magnitude of, hey, you know, most of the league’s back home and we're still going.”
It’s kind of fitting, too, that they will begin their run in the same place they began their season, Tampa, with Jayden Daniels’ and others’ playoff debuts coming on the same field they began the Dan Quinn era on four months ago.
“Kind of crazy how things happen, but it's another opportunity for us to go back there and show, hey, this is what we've been up to all season, and we can make another splash out there,” Ekeler said. “I know Jayden, that was his first game, and we saw some splashes of him kind of coming out of his shell, and obviously he's taken off to the player he is right now. And now, it's time to go show what everyone else and the rest of the crew has been up to as well. Looking forward to being back in Florida, especially with all the dang snow out here, and going back at it on a Sunday night game.”
So, given how good the interior line is for Tampa, how will Ekeler and the rest of the backs handle the challenge?
“You'll look at your game plan for the week, what plays do we have in, and then you'll go back; at this point, we have a ton of film on everybody, and you'll look at how those plays from other teams were ran against the team that we're playing,” Ekeler said. “So, we'll see how they play the wide zones, the power, the counter, how they're playing in the pass game in terms of the slide or on the edge, and those are the things that you take account for as a coordinator. I put myself basically in a position to get mental reps when you're watching film; it’s not like you can get the actual reps at practice, you can try to simulate it, but you kind of have to use your imagination and be creative when you're watching film. When you’re in the NFL as long as I have been, you learn are all these little techniques and learn how to read these and it gets faster for you, but there's all these terminology and techniques that you want to look for that just helps you read things faster, helps you eliminate sloppy eyes when you're looking at stuff that you don't need to be looking at, and you can get on to be more efficient, which makes you a better player at the end of the day.”
We’ll see how the Commanders fan base travels for their first playoff game with fans in over a decade, but if there’s one message Ekeler has to all of you, it’s this: