Receiver Isaac Bruce played first 14 NFL seasons with the Rams organization. Now, he’s with the 49ers and will play against his former team for the first time.
Just for fun, here is the entire Q&A with the always-loquacious Bruce:
Q: Has this season been frustrating, being part of a 2-7 team and losing six straight?
Bruce: Not at all.
Q: Why have you been able to keep your spirits up?
Bruce: Frustration has never added anything to my life, so I don’t allow frustration to be a part of my life.
Q: How do you reconcile what’s going on, as far as the win-loss record?
Bruce: I look at it as a work in progress.
Q: From that standpoint, do you pride when you see some of the young receivers stepping up?
Bruce: Honestly, I don’t. This is what they’re here to do. They’re here to play and here to perform when they get their opportunity.
Q: When you say work in progress, are you encouraged by what you see?
Bruce: I’m always encouraged, and yes, I do see progress.
Q: How do you adjust your goals as the season goes along?
Bruce: Well, you don’t. I’m not a double-minded person. If I did it, I would be a double-minded person. Therefore my goals and everything I believe about this season in the beginning are still the same.
Q: Are you a creature of habit? Do you like to get in a routine where you do the same things?
Bruce: I think that’s pretty much everyone.
Q: Fourteen seasons in one place, how were you able to adjust coming here to a completely new environment?
Bruce: Football is football. That’s a different question. We’d have to have some time to answer that question.
Q: Does it have any importance or meaning to be playing your former team?
Bruce: Not really. I’ve practiced against them for 14 years, so there’s difference.
Q: Do you still talk to people there regularly?
Bruce: I don’t want to answer that question.
Q: Why not?
Bruce: I just don’t want to.
Q: Why haven’t we seen more consistency in your game?
Bruce: I think a concerted effort is being made to get me the football. But when I get it, I can only do what I do. I’m not the quarterback or the coordinator.
Q: Do you and Mike Martz talk about the issues you face for why the ball does not come to you more?
Bruce: I can pretty much see what he sees, so there’s no need for dialogue for why it’s not happening. I don’t lose sleep.
Q: What do you see? Why’s that not happening?
Bruce: I believe our running game is working really well and I’m a big part of that. I’m all right going with what’s working.
Q: It had to be emotional to leave a team that was the only NFL franchise you knew. Did that affect you personally that those ties after 14 years were going to be severed?
Bruce: Affect me?
Q: Did it hurt that you weren’t able to finish your career in the only NFL home you knew?
Bruce: Not at all.
Q: Why not?
Bruce: I don’t live my life emotional. I live a principled life. So I know business is business and sometimes business falls on people who don’t want it to fall on. It fell on Isaac Bruce. It wasn’t a surprise. Sometimes I say they beat me to the draw.
Q: It’s business, but I’m sure you established a lot of friendships over a lot of years?
Bruce: I don’t lose friendships because I leave. If I did, they were never my friends.
Q: What do you mean they beat me to the draw?
Bruce: That’s just what I said. It’s pretty self-explanatory.
Q: I don’t understand what that means.
Bruce: Well, I don’t want to get into it.
Q: Do you see yourself continuing to play in the future? Is it still fun for you?
Bruce: I’m still having fun. I plan on playing Sunday, and that’s the future.
Q: What have you seen from the young guys, Josh Morgan and Jason Hill, and how have they complemented your game?
Bruce: When the ball gets spread more, the ball starts to get spread around more. So those guys stepping up and playing well will be a big benefit for this organization.
Q: Don’t know how much you look at NFL history, but your time with Torry Holt there, do you think you guys composed one of the top tandems in the league?
Bruce: Yes.
Q: And what makes you say that?
Bruce: I’d say the production.
Q: How were you able to complement each other?
Bruce: We were friends first, so that helped everything.
Q: Was there a friendly competition?
Bruce: No.
Q: Did you consider yourselves both No. 1 receivers?
Bruce: I couldn’t tell you about his thinking, but yes (me). I’m sure he was thinking the same thing.
Q: That’s what you want for the receivers to think of themselves as No. 1 receivers?
Bruce: What a team wants? Yeah, on my team, that’s what I want.
Thanks, Isaac.
Bruce: No problem.
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From the desk of the great Lisa Goodwin . . .
Our guy, Isaac Bruce, along with Manny Lawson, Parys Haralson, Donald Strickland and Jason Hill will kick off the holiday season by volunteering in the warehouse of the San Francisco Food Bank on Tuesday from 1 to 3 p.m.
The players and volunteers will prepare Supplemental Food Boxes to be distributed to 9,600 low-income seniors in
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