Viktor
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- Mar 19, 2019
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Gray recalled how each player had to wait his turn to start, only to thrive later on.
“The thing is, when we drafted Trae, we had [Terence] Newman here. So we were getting Trae into the scheme of things, trying to get him to understand, ‘Hey, look – you’re going to be the next guy. You can’t just accept a backup role.’ So the good thing we had was a three-corner system,” Gray said. “And that helped us tremendously because Xavier didn’t have to play every snap, and neither did Trae. But eventually those guys graduate, and now you don’t have Terence Newman, now it’s Trae and Xavier. So, ‘Trae, you are the next guy. … [You’ve] got to think about being the best corner in the league.’
“And then you’ve got Mackensie, who basically did the same thing. Mackensie was going a little bit with Captain [Munnerlyn] when he came in, then it was Mackensie and Newman, now all of a sudden, ‘Mack, it’s your job.’ OK, ‘How are you going to handle being the guy?’ ” Gray added. “And, ‘Can you handle when somebody else is pushing you?’ To me, that’s how you keep your program going. It’s not just one guy that’s going to be here and you never push the next guy.”
Hughes was off to a flying start in 2018 when he suffered a torn ACL in Week 6. By then, he had already tallied a pick-six, forced fumble, fumble recovery and three passes defensed.
Gray noted he has been helping Hughes with his preparation in the meeting rooms although the 2018 first-round pick did not participate in spring practices.
“The big thing we do with Mike is the mental part of the game. Mike was really a smart guy when he came in,” Gray said. “He caught onto stuff real fast, so you know he studied. It wasn’t by luck.