Ty Montgomery: Don't want to get 'lackadaisical'
Green Bay Packers wide receiver Ty Montgomery co-hosted Monday's Clubhouse Live, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin’s live weekly football show. Packers defensive back Micah Hyde was Montgomery’s guest.
Among the topics they touched on were the bye week, the evaluation process and improvement in the pass defense. The show can be seen live at The Clubhouse Sports Pub & Grill in downtown Appleton or at clubhouselive.com.
Here are select and edited answers from the interview:
WATCH: Clubhouse Live with Montgomery, Hyde
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Q: What was Mike McCarthy's message to the team Monday as you all reconvened from the bye week?
Montgomery: Coming off a bye week, you just want everything to be clicking and going in the right direction. You don't want anything to be, as my old ball coach used to say, lackadaisical. So, just make sure there's a lot of energy out there and everything's clicking. Don't miss a beat, and make sure that we're rolling going into this next game.
Q: The bye week is often a time for teams and players to go through the self-scouting process. What did you learn about yourself as you evaluated your performance over the first three weeks of the season?
Montgomery: One, I need to stay healthy because I didn't do that last year. And two, I think I just need to keep on doing what I'm doing and just stay patient. Obviously, I want to be involved in the offense more, but I can't lose sight of the importance of special teams and what I can bring to that end. Obviously, I want to play more on offense, but when that time comes, it'll come. And then just keep being a team player, and keep finding ways to contribute. Because at the end of the day, we're all one team with one goal, and that's to win the Super Bowl. If I get a ring, we get a ring, that's what we all want.
Q: Mike McCarthy has said the run defense is currently ahead of the pass defense. What has to happen for the pass defense to catch up with how good your run defense has played? You've had a lot of young guys playing in the secondary.
Hyde: Yeah, we do. But that's the NFL. That's going to happen. That's not an excuse. But we've got to keep working. We've got to keep talking in the back end, helping each other out. We've got veteran safeties to get us out of some positions. But we try to help out our young guys as much as possible and not give up the big plays. That's what's going to kill a defense. We were playing wonderful football the first half (against the Lions) until that - with (32) seconds left we give up that (73-yard touchdown) pass. That just can't happen. Yeah, we had young guys on the field, but as a football team, we've got to be able to talk through those situations. We've got a lot of room to grow, and we're looking forward to it.
Brett Christopherson: 920-993-7117, or brett.christopherson@gannett.com; on Twitter @PCBrettC