Shane Ray has always known he had the talent. From his high school football days in Roseland Park, Kan. to his college days as a Missouri Tiger wreaking havoc on SEC quarterbacks. Last year’s consensus All-American and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year plans to make even more noise in his NFL rookie season.
This week Ray is attending the NFL Rookie Symposium with most other NFL rookies where they will learn life skills and proper etiquette of a rookie in the NFL.
Ray talked with Around The NFL from the Rookie Symposium about his goals for his rookie season and held nothing back. “I don’t see anything less than Defensive Rookie of the Year. I mean that’s my goal. A lot of people might say that sounds cocky for you to say it right now, but I’ve always set high goals for myself, just like I did in college and that is something that I’m looking to prove, that I’m the best defensive rookie here.”
Denver Broncos fans have to admire the confidence Ray exudes and the thought of him lining up with Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware is exciting to say the least. Ray is doing his best to learn all he can from two great pass rushers.
“I work with DeMarcus and Von every day, some days I might work with Von on pass coverages, on reading receivers, how I’m supposed to play this receiver in this coverage. With DeMarcus, he might show me some hand stuff or pass rush stuff, like ‘maybe you should try this.’ With both of those guys, I kinda have the opportunity to look through their eyes on how they see things on the field and I just utilize that and add to my game.”
Now fully recovered from his toe injury that made Ray miss most of the Broncos offseason work, the No. 23 overall pick is also not shying away from the Marijuana incident that he had prior to the draft, telling Around The NFL, “What happened to me, I feel like I can share my story and give somebody some insight on better decision making,” he said. “Like I said, everybody makes mistakes, it was unfortunate that it happened to me, but I learned from it… I got my life together.”
Joe Namath once said, “When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.”
For Ray and Broncos fans, lets hope the 2015-16 season is a lot of fun!
Sammy Mugharbil, a Mile High Sports intern and MSU-Denver student, contributed to this report