Read the full transcript from S Dante Trader Jr.'s media availability on September 28, 2026.

Tell us about the impact of the Achane injury to the whole team. What does that mean?

Dante Trader Jr.: Especially as a brother, a teammate, as a fellow competitor, you don't want to be in that situation. You don't want your brother to be in that situation, it hurts, especially when the offense runs through him and gets a lot of energy and juice. You see the o-line blocks willingly and carries us down the field. Achane's a receiver, he's a back, he's whatever you want him to be in an offensive scheme. So losing one of our goers and one of our leaders, it really hurts. But now it brings everybody up to get together and like, all right, we got to figure out wherever Achane is not and whatever he's not going to be this year, we got to be able to pick up the slack. So that's our job at the end of the day. Depth guys, backups, whoever they bring in, that's literally our job, is to perform.

It didn't seem like you guys let that get to you in the game yesterday, because it happens on the first drive and obviously competitive throughout. Is that just in the game moment or is that just part about being a professional, you can't let that get to you?

Dante Trader Jr.: It's a little bit of both. Being in the moment, you can't let that affect you, but then it becomes one of those things like, all right, we're going to play for you, 'Chan'. Like that's just exactly what happened on the offensive side. Like Ollie coming in the game, even Malik coming in at running back. That's just the type of guys we got on the field that this whole year's opportunity from the time the staff got here. So Achane's down, now we got to be able to pick up the slack and just go. We can't sulk because it's our job to make the next play and win this game.

In the everchanging safety rotation it was you and Michael Taaffe yesterday. So how do you think that went?

Dante Trader Jr.: It was kind of solid. We have to just sharpen up more, communication, try to keep a roof on the thing with one of the most explosive passing offenses in the league. Just being able to fly around, just obviously you want some plays back – this was exactly what you need. Especially that first play of the game, we got schemed up, it was a great call. It's like you want that one back. Other than that, we're going to try to fight you the rest of the game and keep it close to let our offense go do what they do. So that was kind of how the day went.

I know you and Ollie are close. Why is he ready for a potential increase workload?

Dante Trader Jr.: Because he doesn't change, man. He's consistent. When you don't change outside of football, you're not going to change in football. His process, whatever he does, from off the field to on the field is going to stay. He's a gamer, man. Like, he shows up on game days when his number is called with the little reps or the most reps he has. Every game you see him, whatever he tries to do, he just tries to maximize opportunity. And just as the type of guy he is, we can't forget what he did in college with the Doak Walker and everything. That's still in there. That's all us young players. We're trying to tap into some of the things that we used to do. Obviously, it's a new game. You're trying to figure out your own game and the next level with a lot of guys that's been here and got experience over you.

What did Jacob Rodriguez show you when he made that diving interception off your tip?

Dante Trader Jr.: Question right back at you. What did he show you? He's a dawg, man. Like, when I watched it on tape, I'm like, where did he come from? Because knew the system. I'm in a deep half, the speed was to the field. How did he get over here when the ball tipped over off my shoulder? I just see like he knew the process of, OK, this guy goes out, I'm going to get squared the next thing's coming in. That's exactly how instinctual he is. So it allows him to come make that play. And then obviously he's got some return skills too. He could have really cribbed it, but just one block away. Again, like I said last week, him having the green dot, his poise and his ability to tackle and just make game-changing plays.

There were a lot of people around that ball. JuJu Brents was around that ball. And you and Jacob, what can we read into that?

Dante Trader Jr.: Read into it? We're trying to take away the ball. As simple as that, like what you emphasize is what's going to happen. And then everybody's – all defensive players are selfish, and I'm trying to get an interception. I'm trying to get a takeaway. Because now Jacob could say, "I picked of one of the best quarterbacks in the league." But just saying that's the type of defense we're going to try to be and just continue to build just to get to the ball and affect the ball because in this league, especially against that quarterback, if you don't take the ball away, he's going to have 7-on-7 out there like he's been doing his whole career.

You guys have been pretty good at containing deep passes and now in the last two weeks stopping the run. What's it going to take to sort of shore up what's going on with the tight ends?

Dante Trader Jr.: Yeah, especially with tight ends, man. It's hard, especially with play action and boots and things like that, they get leaked out. When you can do run blocks into passes and it gets guys out of levels, they got certain schemes that allow them to fit into holes. So you got different answers like manning them up or just sharpening on our boot rules, our play action rules and just even the drop back pass rules. So just having the ability to sharpen up on the tight ends that we've been facing. Obviously we've played Kittle and Kelce and got a couple more coming up. So just taking what we've seen and what they hit on us, I'm like, all right, how can we mitigate these yards, these routes that they're getting and just lock it down? So as we're going forward, just honestly, more tape and more studying of it so they don't take advantage of it.

You said they schemed you up on the first play, what was it that they saw that they could expose?

Dante Trader Jr.: I just watched it again in the team meeting room. We got pressure on that side, so it made it look like a boot. So on boot rules versus drop back, we have different rules of what we do with certain coverage players. So the fact that we got pressure and he had to roll out and he threw off his back foot, it made certain players shift the coverage. So then I'm like, all right, it was a good call against the play we had. It's hit or miss of what guys had seen. It was just a good play at the end of the day. They executed it. But if we get that back and we read it again, we'll have guys in a different situation. So it's a mixture of scheme and then just the unorthodox of Pat Mahomes being able to flush. We got a guy going to pull him up and he throws off his back foot to make a big explosive play.