[Upchurch]
This is the first in what will hopefully be an ongoing series of one-on-one interviews in which I ask players to go in-depth about a certain play from last week’s game. This week I talked to Grant Perry about his touchdown catch that came on a nicely run corner route in the middle of the first quarter. Don’t remember it? Just watch the gif at the bottom of the post.
When you got to the line, what did you see?
“I actually saw a coverage that we didn’t get all week in practice. It was a bracket coverage where they had one guy outside of me and one inside of me, so pre-snap I was not expecting to get the ball. But ran a good route, Wilton saw it and lofted it right over the guy’s head. It was perfect.”
It looked like you faked the post to the inside before running the corner.
“Yeah.”
Is that something that is built into the route or are you guys allowed to improvise as you see different types of coverage?
“Yeah, we kind of just improvise on different kinds of coverage. Especially when there’s two dudes over you, you’ve got to kind of just give something one way, trick them out the other way, and then go back another way. So it’s really just about getting open. No real name to that. It’s just the art of route running.”
In the postgame press conference Coach Harbaugh said that was about as good as you can throw a corner route. As far as Wilton goes, would you say that’s one of his best-thrown routes that you saw through camp and whatnot?
“Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t surprised by it. We throw that during practice, after practice. Getting extra work, we’ll throw that route because that’s a route you run from the slot a lot. I wasn’t surprised by it. I’m sure he was very happy with the throw. Capping a 98-yard drive after an interception probably feels pretty good. Yeah, no surprise on that one there.”
You mentioned that you didn’t think you were going to get the ball. At what point did you know it was coming?
“Kind of when I broke him off outside and stepped inside. Went back to the corner and I looked back and he was trailing me, and I just saw the ball. So when the ball hit my hands I knew it came to me.”
So you turn to look as you get into the corner route?
“Yeah, step and look. Yep.”
What route would you say you’re most comfortable with and what’s your favorite route to run?
“I like running any route, to be honest. The corner route is a good route to run because you get to run deep and run away from people. Especially if it’s in the end zone. So that’s always fun. Really any route in this system is a good route to run.”
As we talked about earlier, you’re allowed to improvise here and there. Your route running is very precise; we can see that on film. What are some drills or other things you do to work on that?
“Coach Fisch, Coach Drew [Terrell], Coach Ryan [Nehlen], they put us through all these great drills. There’s a lot of cone drills we do working on cutting. There’s a tennis ball drill we do where we pick up the ball and work on getting low. And then stuff at the line of scrimmage trying to get the DB off you. Stuff like that really simulates and helps get the feel for it in the game.”
