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Matt Kalil’s career is off to a solid start. The No. 4 overall pick of the NFL Draft has yet to surrender a sack while manning Christian Ponder’s blind side. The USC product credits defensive end Jared Allen for his quick adjustment to the pro game. Matt Kalil joined Judd & Phunn on 1500 ESPN in Minneapolis to discuss the first two games of his NFL career, the learning experience and the relationship between quarterback and a struggling tackle.
On how he forgets about bad plays immediately and moves on:
“I got trained a lot going against Jared in camp, because he definitely beat me a lot. So that trained me pretty fast to be mentally tough. He definitely helped me with that and he’s always giving me good advice, and definitely made my progression in the NFL a lot easier.”
On what the team’s taken away from playing two very close games to start the season:
“I think it’s a good sign to show that our team can perform in clutch situations. Obviously you’ve gotta take the positives out of that and see how you can work off that and become even better the next week. We had a lot of good drives that just happened to finish in the red zone; we got field goals rather than touchdowns. And that’s something to work on — just finishing drives and getting those seven points rather than those three points.”
On what he wants to hear from a quarterback when he’s struggling (in regard to the Jay Cutler-J’Marcus Webb incident last week):
“I think if you messed up, you know you messed up. As a quarterback, you’re the leader of that offense and if someone’s not performing well, it’s your job to get in their face and make sure everyone’s on the same page.”
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