Thayer Munford Improving Daily for Las Vegas Raiders
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HENDERSON, Nev.--Former Ohio State Buckeye tackle Thayer Munford has improved every day of his first Las Vegas Raiders training camp.
After struggling through much of OTAs and mini-camp, Munford has now found his sea legs and is shining. He spoke recently after practice about his progress.
You can watch the entire press conference below, and read the transcript:
Tackle Thayer Munford
Q: How was your experience in your first game, especially being in Ohio?
Thayer Munford: "That experience for me was kind of crazy because coming from Ohio, being an Ohio guy that went to La Salle High School down in Cincinnati, went to Massillon High School and also went to OSU too. It was crazy because I didn't expect my first game [would] be in Ohio as well. I expected it to be somewhere else or here. It was a blessing, I got to see my family, my fiancé. It was pretty good."
Q: When you saw that pop on the schedule [Hall of Fame game], did you say, 'Oh wow, that's where...' ?
Munford: "Yeah, I was just shell shocked."
Q: How much fun was it playing in Canton with the rivalry between Massillon High School and McKinley High School, where Josh McDaniels played?
Munford: "With Coach McDaniels, when I first came here for my visit, he was trying to give me some talk about McKinley stuff. And I was said, 'No, I'm 1-0 against you,' and he's 4-0 against [Massillon]. We joke about it, but it's all mutual respect."
Q: You played multiple positions on the offensive line at Ohio State, what helps you move around different spots on the line?
Munford: "It’s being consistent at everything. At Ohio State, I played mostly on the left side. My freshman year at OSU, I played right tackle for a couple years. And then my sophomore year, I switched to left tackle because I played left tackle all my high school career. Doing that was pretty good. I feel very comfortable with it, I've still got a lot of stuff to learn, and I have people to help me out with that too."
Q: What's the difference between left and right tackle?
Munford: "You still have to get your hips aligned, and you've got to make sure you don't punch with your inside hand as well, especially my left hand because I played on the left side. Other than that, it's really not much different."
Q: What’s it like going against a guy like Maxx Crosby?
Munford: "I've been going against Nick [Bosa] and Chase Young all my career at Ohio State, and I've gone against a couple of the younger guys that are coming up in next year's draft. Going against Maxx, it's different. He's a crazy guy, everybody knows that. I have all types of respect for him. I have all types of respect for everybody I'm going against. I'm not going to just say, 'Alright this person...' -- everybody is a professional and everything, and I've got all types of respect for everybody."
Q: Is it frustrating lining up against Maxx on an everyday basis?
Munford: "Sometimes it does get frustrating. But at the same time, a rookie going against an All-Pro, Pro Bowler defensive end, I try to figure out where can I better myself, and my set, and how I can better myself and my punch as well. Going against him almost every day during practice, it helps me out a lot, and it helps everybody on the offensive line as well. Seeing him going hard every day, it makes us go hard."
Q: There was a little skirmish the other day. Is that important sometimes with the offensive line to kind of hold their ground and say enough is enough?
Munford: "Football is football, and we're in the middle of camp and it's getting hot. Tensions start to go, it's just camp."
Q: What sort of growth have seen in yourself just from OTAs to now?
Munford: "Since OTAs and when I first came here, I was all over the place, mentally. I wasn't really too sure if I was ready to be here or not. I had a couple of counseling sessions with our counselor Jean, and I talked with everybody as far as vets like Brandon Parker, Alex Leatherwood, all those old heads that have been here from last year on. They just kind told me, 'Hey, look, just calm down, relax, don't overthink it too much because as soon as you start overthinking it, everybody will start doing bad or you can start doing bad.’ With me, I take the mental side very seriously because they kind of helped me out with all that stuff at OSU. I went through a lot of stuff at OSU and throughout my whole life. With that, I just take it day by day, keep my head down, don't get too high, don't get too low, either.
Q: Zamir White has also overcome adversity, have you two bonded over your life experiences and the fact that you’re both rookies?
Munford: "With Z [Zamir White], me and him really don't talk that much, but when we do talk. It's always laughter, we're always laughing [at] each other because we're the same age and we kind of talk about what we went through in our past. Having another guy go through almost the same exact stuff, it's kind of crazy because you never thought that anybody is going through the same stuff that you're going through. But if you open up and talk about it a lot, people will start opening up to you a lot more about what their situations."
Q: When did you kind of start those counseling sessions and do you plan on continuing that throughout your career?
Munford: "100 percent. Everybody thinks that it’s a physical game, we're going against grown men, but me, it's more important mentally because if your mental is not right - like the same thing with you. If your mental is not right doing your job, you’ll post a bad story. You might say, 'This is not good, I have to take this down.' With us, we have to have our mental right every day, because we are going against professionals. Our job can get taken as well, or, -- knock on wood -- of course we could get injured. Nobody really wants that. So, the mental side of football is really very, very important."
Q: You talked about finding that confidence. Was there a moment physically on the field where you said, 'Oh, I do belong here, like I get this.'?
Munford: "The first padded day. The first day in pads I thought I was going to be like, 'Alright let's go. Let's hit somebody that's stronger than me.’ But at the same time, I was overthinking it of course. But yes, on the first pads day, everybody is jacked up of course, but at the same time you got to just keep a level head."
Q: what was causing your overthinking on the first day of pads?
Munford: "More anxiety. I had a lot of anxiety coming in, a lot of anxiety getting drafted of course. But people kept telling me just calm down. Just relax, take deep breaths before you go out there and block Maxx [Crosby] or Chandler [Jones] or whoever you're going against. Just take deep breaths and calm your mental."
Q: How much did last Thursday kind of help you out a little bit to see it against another opponent, an NFL opponent in a game?
Munford: "It was very different. For me, it was my first NFL game. I was psyching myself out most of the time, but as the game went on, I started getting a little more comfortable in my set and how I approached the game as well."
Q: You proposed to your fiancé at Disney this summer. How has that helped ground you in some way?
Munford: "It's funny you ask that. It was crazy to me, because I was talking to her dad a whole year before I proposed and he was telling me, 'Look man, I trust you, I love you like my own son,' and just having another family to help me out, back me up mentally, that means a lot, especially them. They are great people, they helped me out with my mom, they helped me out with all types of situations I went through during college. I give them all my respect., I love them to death, love my fiancée even though my fiancé can be very - I'm not going to say it [laughter]. But at the same time, she's a great woman, I love her to death."
Q: Were you more nervous proposing?
Munford: "Oh yes. I was shaking. I was on my knee shaking. I was like, 'I don't know if she's going to say yes or no.' It was a lot of anxiety going in, but I knew partly she was going to say yes but I was happy at the end of the day."
Q: Over the past couple of years, a lot of professional players have been coming out and being expressive about what they've been going through. Who are some of the players that you lean on to when you're having a down day?
Munford: "I kind of lean on Alex Leatherwood a lot, Lester Cotton, Brandon Parker, Kolton Miller, Jermaine [Eleuemunor], basically everybody in the offensive line room. I've got a couple players, couple teammates from other teams as well that I can talk to as well, and they keep saying the same things, 'Keep your head down, everything is not going to go the way you want it right now, but just keep doing you, just keep grinding, prove everybody wrong, do what you've got to do as a rookie."
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