Culliver on rehabbing an ACL tear, becoming a starter and going to court

SANTA CLARA – Chris Culliver was interviewed Saturday afternoon by Bay Area reporters outside of the 49ers’ locker room. Here is a transcript.

Q: How does the knee feel?

CULLIVER: It feels good. I’m cutting well. A lot of confidence. Training hard.

Q: When you reported to camp last year, did you do so with the mindset that you would be a starter for the 2013 season?

CULLIVER: No, I wouldn’t say that. It comes with the territory. You keep playing, you keep working and you see what happens. We had Carlos and we had T. Brown. We had other guys ahead of me. I come out every day and try to get better. My main focus is to get better and be 100 percent confident in what I’m doing out there.

Q: Same mindset this year? Just working?

CULLIVER: Just working and getting all of the calls and getting everything back down. I haven’t been out there for a year, so I can’t just say, “I would to come in and start.” You can’t do that. You have to get yourself ready to work and play and have that mindset to go out there and compete first.

Q: How hard was your ACL rehab?

CULLIVER: It was hard. Kendall is my roommate for camp. To see him go down like that, the only word I can use to describe it is “devastating.” I don’t wish that on anybody. I hope everybody stays healthy. It’s so easy to do that, to mess something up like that, but it’s so hard to come back. A lot of people don’t understand that: “He’ll be back in seven or eight or nine months,” – y’all don’t know, man. It’s kind of hard.

Q: At what point did you feel 100 percent healthy?

CULLIVER: It’s really about feeling confident in yourself. A lot of people have clean ACL (tears). There are a lot of different things that go on behind the scenes with the medical staff. It could be a clean ACL or MCL or LCL, different things. But you’ve got to take your time and understand yourself, understand your knee.

Q: Yours was clean?

CULLIVER: No, I had a meniscus and my ACL.

Q: What’s the difference between playing in Nickel situations and being a starting cornerback?

CULLIVER: Nickel, most likely it’s going to be a pass. First and second down is a lot different than third down. There’s a lot of different routes, a lot more you have to pick up on. It’s not that easy. You’ve got know more concepts, you’ve got to understand that it’s first and second down – you get runs, you get double routes, a lot of different things.

Q: There was an incident in the offseason. Can you explain what happened and what your mindset is as far as that situation goes?

CULLIVER: That situation is still ongoing in the court system. I can’t really talk about that right now. But we can continue talking about football, I’m with that.

Q: Do you have to deal with that coming up at all, the court case?

CULLIVER: What do you mean do I have to deal with it?

Q: Do you have to go to court soon?

CULLIVER: Yeah, I have to deal with it. Like I said, it’s ongoing. It’s something I’m still dealing with.

This article has 1 Comment

  1. Q: There was an incident in the offseason. Can you explain what happened and what your mindset is as far as that situation goes?
    ——————-
    Seriously? If I had your job Grant I’d get fired for slapping people for wasting time with such asinine questions.

Comments are closed.