Mack Hollins Speaks from Las Vegas Raiders Training Camp
HENDERSON, Nev.-The Las Vegas Raiders continued their offseason coup of roster raiding around the NFL when they signed the offensive captain of the Miami Dolphins in Mack Hollins.
Nearly instantly upon joining the Silver and Black, Hollins has emerged as a team favorite and leader. He talked recently after training camp practice and you can watch that in its entirety below, and read the transcript:
Wide receiver Mack Hollins
Q: What is the Mack Hollins mile?
Hollins: “It’s probably way further than it actually is. I always run a mile after every workout, then some of the guys started seeing it and they started doing it. At this level, every player can run a mile, no problem, after every workout. There’s no time of it. There’s no speed on it. You just have to do it, so it’s just mental. So, you do a hard during OTAs, you do a hard lift and at the end I can still do a mile. When you’re in the third, fourth quarter and I‘m hurting, I can still do a mile and I can still get a couple more plays. That’s the mindset behind it. It will go on and off, I don’t do it every day during training camp. I’ll probably do more Mack miles than other guys. It’s two-and-a-half laps, not counting end zones. From bottom left corner goal line around, that’s one lap. Around again, that’s two laps, 150 yards—100 then 50 across, then 50 more yards and then turn around. It’s about 1,600 yards.”
Q: We asked Josh (McDaniels, Raiders Head Coach) about you earlier, he credited you for what you do as a receiver and also the various roles that you do on special teams. Does that conditioning help you stay full go when putting on all those different Yes, hats?
Hollins: “Yeah. As I’ve gone along in my career, and even when I was in college, I think conditioning has been a big part. You can lift a lot of weights and I don’t want to take stuff away from the weight room as I know that it is really important, I put a lot of emphasis in that too. But if I can stay at 100 for longer than the next guy, even if he’s stronger than me in the first quarter, by the end of the game he’s dropped to such a level because his conditioning is not good. Conditioning is huge for me because I know I may play all four special teams and then also have a role as a receiver. Me saying I’m tired or hurting, that really doesn’t fly because I’m expected to be at my top no matter where I’m placed, and I know I have to be prepared for that. Yeah, conditioning is big for me.”
Q: From an assignment standpoint, how do you juggle all of the responsibilities that you have in those various roles?
Hollins: “I just say repetition, constantly trying to learn stuff, study stuff, walking through it. Everybody learned different, visuals, flash cards, walking through it out on the turf and I try to get a little bit of all that. Even saying the full play in my head because it sound different when you read it out in your mind, just different techniques. The more reps you can get the better, taking advantage of off days like tomorrow then you can just study a whole bunch and kind of get a leg up so that when you’re in the huddle, you’re not stressing. When I’m in the kicking game and Tom (McMahon, Raiders Special Tams Coordinator) says something that I’m not like “Wait, hold it, what do I have here?’ Because the less I’m thinking the better I’ll play.”
Q: You’ve made an impression on a lot of people in the locker room. A lot of people talk about you what you’ve brought to everyone. Has it always been easy for you to jump right in and fit in with everybody?
Hollins: “Yeah, I guess I’d probably be like the weird guy in the locker room if you were to ask who the weirdest guy in the locker room is, they’d probably put Mack in the top five. I think it because I don’t really care what people have to think about me, like I’m not trying to live forever. I’m here for a short amount of time and if you don’t like me then so be it. But I try to enjoy the time we have here because I know that a football career is even shorter than any other career. So, if I’m going to be here and be with y’all for 12 hours a day, I better enjoy being around y’all or y’all are going to enjoy being around me.”
Q: Darren Waller said you are arguably top five funniest people that he’s ever met. Is there a style of comedy that you prefer or are there any inspirations?
Hollins: “Workout genius, comedian, my word. I don’t know. I had two brothers and grew up playing a lot of sports where you just joke around a lot, and you have fun and I think it just rolls over. I guess I’m just quick with it, I always have a response for something, and it probably gets me in trouble a good bit. Guys try to get on me and I’ll have four things back for them. You just don’t want to laugh too hard because I might turn to you and you’re in it. I don’t know about top funniest, maybe they haven’t been around too a lot of funny people.
Q: Davante (Adams) said about watching Patriots film leading up to camp and now putting it into play, what’s enticing is that there are so many weapons. When you come to this team, there’s Davante, there’s Hunter (Renfrow), there in place. Does having the options knowing that this offense calls for so many make it getting more optimism being a part of this?
Hollins: “Yeah, I think that as a competitor, any chances that you have to get on the field and play the game that you’ve trained your whole life to play is always a plus. Like nobody wants to go to games and watch from the sideline. As I’ve learned more and more, this offense is, OK there’s more opportunities than Hunter and Darren and Tae. So that’s what’s so great about going out there, we have such a good receivers room where it’s really competitive, nobody has an easy third or fourth receiver role, nobody has than shoed in, so every day we can come out and compete and try to give our best and see who can earn it.”
Q: I’ve heard that you do a lot of beach cleanup back in Florida. What would you do, if you could, in the Las Vegas community?
Hollins: “Environment, animals have always been big to me so obviously Florida, it’s a little easier to do beach cleanups than here. But you go into the desert, or you go into the mountains, the amount of trash that you’ll find that people just kind of leave for someone else to clean up. Even of it, honestly, they forgot it, that stuff stacks up. You think about how many people climb the mountains every day or go through the trails every day and, just one piece of trash per person, if you add that up, it gets pretty high. So being able to just do little stuff like that or even stuff in the community, it doesn’t have to be environmental stuff. I always try to give back because no matter what, no matter how I play on the field, the community will always be here, and they are always supporting, and they are always giving their hard-earned money to come watch us play or their time to watch us practice. So, if I can give back just a little to them, it means a lot to me.
Q: You mentioned the third wide receiver spot. Does that have the feel of kind of a committee where it’s going to be an evolving type of a situation?
Hollins: “Absolutely. Obviously, Josh is great with creating things that give offenses the best opportunity to win and whether that’s a different guy at technically third wide receiver. It’s all packages, you know like whether it’s me or Key or T-Billy or Jordan or DJ or whoever is in there or Stoner, even Justin, whoever is in there, is in there and we’ve always been taught that whoever is in the game, you’re the starter, you’re the guy. So that’s how we are going to treat it. It’s not like the third spot, it’s like that’s the guy. It can be a revolving kind of door.”
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