First, tell me about JamesWashington13.com – what you’re looking to accomplish with the site?
Well, my intention is to inspire young kids from small towns like the one I grew up in to keep striding – to help them understand how to find opportunities like I had since high school.
It’s been a crazy offseason – how have you been preparing for the upcoming season with all of this going on?
I’ve been hanging out at the house- trying to stay virus free! Trying to stay in shape and be ready when they finally brig us back to the facility.
I know you’re doing a lot of farm work which has helped you stay in shape – what has helped and why?
Well, at first my local high school gave me keys to the gym so I could use that – so I worked out there. But at home, out four-wheeler broke, so I’ve been carrying a six-gallon backpack sprayer on my back – walking around our six-acres here. It has a manual pump as well – so that’s been a lot of work – packing back and forth! Also – stringing out barb-wire fence and cutting down trees – it’s a big job. It’s not easy.
You led the team in receiving last season and showed a lot of improvement- what was behind that, from your perspective?
Really, once Ben went down, someone had to step up. Everyone was looking at the wide receivers – then JuJu went down in the Cleveland game too. It just pushed us younger guys to step up now. There wasn’t time for development.
I had a long talks with Coach Tomlin and the quarterbacks – we knew we had to get it rolling. That’s when it took off.
What did Coach Tomlin say to you?
He just told me to trust myself. To be the man I was before I got to the NFL. Sometimes you feel the need to do more than is necessary. Sometimes doing your one-eleventh of the work is good enough. You have to trust your teammates and if everyone does their job it will all go well.
Did anyone help mentor you at all and give you some words of advice that helped you? If so, what were those?
It helped a lot. Ben before games would share some words of advice with me, He’d ask if I was nervous, and tell me that being nervous was a good thing. The whole wide receivers group was there for each other. We’re a close group and we help each other out a lot.
Now you’ve become a veteran player right? How have you tried to help so many of these new wide receivers the team has brought in?
I just tell them to trust themselves. That there will be times of discouragement. You have to remind yourself that you had what it took to make it to this point. You have to give yourself credit sometimes too.
Coach Mitch – he would always tell me to focus on getting better at one thing every day. Just one thing – don’t try to do everything every day. If you do that, over time you can be the best player there is.
With so many receivers in camp, how competitive does it get for reps and playing time?
It’s definitely a battle, for sure. In camp you can feel the hostility at times, but it’s still a brotherhood – we still love each other. At the same time, its a competition but we help each other. That’s what I like about this group of guys. It’s personal in that we all want to succeed, but the competition is not personal.
Does it get frustrating when you see people saying the Steelers needed to draft a receiver early in the draft and bring another guy in to an already crowded group of young receivers?
Yeah it can be. People just need to give us some time. We’re a young group and we had a decent year last year. We’ll only get better. I really like this group of guys and with Ben coming back – with what we have now – I think we will be very good.
What does a guy like Eric Ebron bring to the offense and what does he do specifically for you and the receivers group?
I think as a veteran guy, he’ll be able to help with some pointers. He’s a big body, strong hands kind of guy that can go get the ball.
For sure, he’ll help the receivers out a lot too. Send him in the middle of the field and if the safety is looking at him, throw the post over his head. Especially in the redzone – with his big body he can make plays. The safety will have to cheat to him which opens it up for us or if they cheat to us he can win those one-on-one battles with linebackers.
And with Ben back – I’m excited about the offense opening up – the hurry-up offense coming back and throwing it downfield more.
Do you and the players look a the aggressiveness of the front office lately – does that get noticed by you – and if so, how?
I love it. We’re trying to get to a Super Bowl. All of the guys have the same mentality and mindset. Especially with Ben’s situation – we want to win one now for him. You never know how much longer he’ll play. But not just for him – there are a lot of guys who want it as well.
A lot of heat on the backup quarterbacks – you think the team has the right guys there?
Yeah, I do. Both are really, really young guys. Mason last year never got true reps in a game setting. Duck was just thrown into the fire. There are times when you just have to be a gamer and Duck displayed that. Both are just young guys – they just need a chance to get steady and things will roll for them.
Any thoughts/expectations for the upcoming season whenever it happens?
I just want a good, healthy year. Unordinary. I just want to do what I can do to help us win – whatever that may be. I don’t have a set of statistical expectations – that’s not the type of player I am. I do wish to have a lot of catches of course – what wide receiver doesn’t. But I just want to do whatever I can to help this team win.
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