Read the full transcript from ILB Tyrel Dodson's media availability on August 7, 2026.
A lot of talent in that linebacker room. It's like, you know how the NFL, you can't keep everybody. What's the balance there? Like competition, helping guys out?
Tyrel Dodson: Me and JB (Jordyn Brooks), are the leaders in the room and we just try to lead with love. Sometimes it's tough love which is competition. Like the Lord said, iron sharpens iron. So all the guys are sharpening each other. Especially with Joe B (Joe Barry), Al Washington and Sean Duggan and it's been great. It reminds me of my times in Buffalo when we had Tremaine Edmunds, AJ Klein, Terrell Bernard, myself, Matt Milano. Like it reminds me of that group, because one room, we had six starters and the table was big enough for all of us to eat off of it. You just got to maximize your role and just run with it.
What is the progress you've seen from those young guys from Jacob Rodriguez and Trey Moore and Kyle Loius?
Tyrel Dodson: Yeah, the progress is like they're coming out of their shell. Trey's goofy, Jacob's like the like the dad of the group, and K Lou is like... K Lou is like K Lou. (laughter)
What does that mean?
Tyrel Dodson: K Lou. Great, like energetic. You see how he plays, is his personality. The sky's the limit for this group. I call them the All-Pro three. They're going to do very good in this league and I can't wait to see it.
I want to ask you the same question I asked Willie about defenders' perspective on Malik Willis. As a second level defender, how does he create conflict for you?
Tyrel Dodson: He creates conflict because you have to like – (he has a) strong arm and can run. So you have to be disciplined, but also when he runs around you have to find your man and plaster it. But you also have to know that that extra person in the coverage where that can go contain him. So he's doing a great job. He's leading, he's a great person and I can't wait to keep building with him.
I got a social media question for you. A group of the young players told us yesterday that they've decided to stay off of social media for a while. I'm wondering how you handle social media. Do you go on it? Do you go back at people? What is your general philosophy?
Tyrel Dodson: Social media, it's not even a thing to me. The fiancée, she loves it because these influencers and she's a model. She does well on it. I just like to get on it just to stay updated. It's like the news nowadays. Just like to stay updated with stuff and I'm not really on it much, I usually post and get off, you know what they say, 'keep the brand up,' but you know how that is.
Do you read what people say about you on the field?
Tyrel Dodson: No, man, that don't matter. They not in this building and certainly they're not God.
You mentioned Buffalo before, but with the linebackers and the corners and with the wide receivers, even all this competition around here how would you categorize this competition under Hafley, maybe compared to what you've seeing around here? Is it more than usual, or how would you just categorize this camp as far as competition?
Tyrel Dodson: Yeah, man. It's not more competitive or less competitive. It's just you versus you if you look at it in that sense, and you just look at the areas you can improve and take on with that and just keep getting better.
Everything Hafley says it just feels very intentional, like he's intentional with what he wants you guys to do, with how practice is structured, with the amount of times you guys have taken the ball away over the past couple of weeks on defense, how much do they stress that in the meeting room in drills like get the ball if you're the defense?
Tyrel Dodson: One of our assistant linebacker coaches Wendel, he starts every meeting with taking the ball away. He's made an excellent emphasis on those takeaway points and we've honed in on it. We've studied different techniques, punching the ball out. Jacob's good at it. So we've studied Peanut Punch and all that stuff. It's looking good.
