I know wide receivers.
Being a tight end, you have to be able to do everything. You have to be able to run routes; you have to be able to block, pass-protect, and run with the ball after a catch. So, that's how I attack my workouts - focusing on doing everything.
I love to hit my little five- to 10-yard cut, and that's what I try to do. And I think that's kind of been my game.
The number one thing is to catch the football and maintain possession.
My reads, operation with the offense, timing with the receivers, routes, sitting in the pocket, trusting my line - everything is always a work in progress.
If you can put your hands on the receiver and get to him fast, that messes up everything for them. If I don't put hands on him, he's probably going to beat me on the route.
Really, you don't want to think about yards after the catch when the ball is in the air. You want to think about catching the ball. And then let the rest play its way out.
If you go off the Senior Bowl, that's basically what I can do. I played H-back, I played fullback, I played tight end, I played slot receiver, I ran routes, I caught some balls, blocked, just doing that stuff.
I'm just a receiver. I don't want to be labeled as a deep-threat guy, which is always going to happen because I'm always going to be able to run past people until I'm slow. I watch some guys who are very good at being deep threats, but it's like people don't respect them doing anything else.
You can work on routes all day in practice but in the game what it comes down to is if somebody is open or not. You kind of go through your progressions and go through it that way.
Ideally, if you ask most tight ends, they would say we want the defender on us early. The reason for that is we feel like, for one, we know where we're going. Two, we can attack leverage, it declares itself if it's truly man coverage. We can work the release.
All I can tell you is I played with Johnny Mitchell. Johnny Mitchell was one of the greatest athletic talents I ever played with, but I could never trust him. When the game was on the line and he was supposed to run an out route at 10 yards, he would run an in route at eight and slide to the outside and scream to me that he was open. But it was how he got open that really made me uncomfortable in trusting him.
I think you have to have a high football IQ. Obviously, you have to have the physical ability to run fast and get open. But you also have to have a high football IQ.
Calvin Johnson, we've never seen a receiver like him - size, speed and how he's developed his overall route running and toughness.
College has become a wide-open game - a lot of short passes, quick passes. Then you go to the pros and it's a whole different ballgame - things are happening faster, the patterns have to be more precise. Getting off the line of scrimmage is more difficult.
You don't want to give the defensive back any signals about what route you're going to run.
I had a whole bunch of things I knew I needed to work on from self-scouting. I knew on certain routes what I needed to do and ways to use my eyes and shoulders and manipulate coverage.
I would say a lot of it came from a lot of different drills that Coach Fleck put me through. That's my man. He taught me a lot, a lot, a lot about receiver play. And he taught me a lot about catching the ball and just hand placement.
I like to run the slants. The slants are cool. I like routes that you can catch the ball running.
Tight end is one of the hardest positions to play in football. It's right up there with quarterback and cornerback. You have to have the skills of a wide receiver and the strength of an offensive lineman, and it's not easy to balance those two.
There's always areas of the game you want to improve. For me, specifically, yards after the catch, making those tough, contested catches.
Whatever I see, I trust my eyes, trust my reads, trust the guys running routes and kind of just let it go.
I just have to make sure that for 60 minutes, I'm going out there and doing my job, running routes the best that I can and trying to get open.
When I first got into the league, I just used to run. Just run the route. Really no technique to it. I really couldn't separate myself from the defender.
Guys like Bryce Treggs, Chris Harper, Kenny Lawler, Darius Powe, Richard Rodgers, Jackson Bouza. All those guys are incredible. They run great routes and have great hands.
