Welcome into Lounge presented by Draft Kings. I'm Ryan Mink here with Garrett Downing, and we are thrilled to sit down with wide receiver D'Andre Hopkins.

So DeAndre, I mean, the vibes around the building this week are impeccable.

And to me, like, it almost feels like, you know, like you made a bad decision in life. You end up in the hospital. You're in a coma. You wake up from the coma and you're like, oh, my God, I have new life. I'm never going to do that bad stuff again. I'm clean now. Right? Like, can you describe what the feeling is like in this building? Man, that's definitely a good way to describe it for sure.

You know, we think that we deserve to be in this position as a football team, the work

we put in, how we practice, all-season training.

To be in this position, it took some teams to beat some teams.

And that's the way it goes sometimes.

You don't want to depend on certain things like that, but this is football.

And all you want is a chance to play meaningful football in December,

especially with the team like we have.

And we put ourselves in that position.

So we think we deserve it and

we know we're capable of once we get into, you know, January football. So, you know, right now

it's handling it this week and that's what we're going to focus on. What was the first thought

you had when you knew that you were going to have a chance for a win and get in-game against the Steelers? First thought I had was get my body ready

to prepare for January football. Playoff football is different. Going, you know, being in year 13,

you know, for myself, I just want to be to to be reliable and be out there for my

teammates so for myself it was what can I do to to give my team the best chance to win you

know when my number's called and so for myself it was you know all right um I need to go I

need to go uh do something I need to go, I need to go do something. I need to go, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, that was my mind, sir. So for you, like, something that stood out to me, really since the day that you signed here and throughout the season, is that, like, at this point of your career, kind of to what you're talking about, you're not like a volume guy like you were earlier in the season that's just going to get a ton of targets. But every time the ball comes your way, to me it seems like it's a huge situation. It's third down. It's a pass to the red zone. Like they're all big situations. And now as you go into this game, it feels like to me like this is the game that you were brought here for. You were brought here this game and for hopefully the playoffs beyond that is that the way that you look at it too of course

for me i want to be out there i'm a competitor that's why i play this game so i'll never look at it

as you know all right i'm here just for this situation that situation but you know

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