Lance Lenoir talks offseason work, leadership in the receivers room, Sanjay Lal, and Byron Jones

There are pet cats, and then there are pet cats.

Lance Lenoir is someone who just about everyone is rooting for to make this roster. From what we’ve seen via social media over the offseason he’s been working extremely hard to make the 53-man roster in 2018. So far, optimism is warranted.

I caught up with Lance out in Oxnard. You can listen to our whole conversation right below on BTB’s OchoLive.

Here’s part of our conversation.

RJ: What’s your offseason been like so far?

Lance: Same as always. It’s just a grind. Year two is way different from year one. Going in, learning the playbook, getting ahead of things, and getting comfortable. Just putting the work in and studying, it all pays off at the end.

RJ: It seems like you’re really close with your position group. You guys went down to Florida. You guys worked out together. What’s that brotherhood like with so many changes? Is it everybody kind of saying we’re all in this together, we’re all sort of feeling the same way here?

Lance: Yea we’re all in this together. We hear what guys say, not being the strongest wide receiver corps, but we know what we’ve got inside. We know what we’ve got on this team. We know what we can do. Our guys in our wide receiver group got different abilities to do different things. We kind of use that together and put it for us to use, and to go out here to show against the world.

RJ: I saw Tavon Austin the other day after Deonte Thompson got popped a little bit. He ran over saying “get up!” in a motivational way. Is Tavon kind of, he’s an older guy obviously, has he kind of taken on a little bit of a leadership role?

Lance: Yea Tavon, T-Dub, Cole Beasley, are all big vets, and also Allen Hurns. Those are like big brothers to us. So we kind of listen to them and they’re going to ride for us. If nobody rides for us, we know that wide receiver group got each other. So that’s kind of how we go into it.

RJ: What’s Coach Sanjay Lal been like? We’ve seen y’all doing some different drills, working without the ball, literally working on just kind of the basics. It seems like he’s a teacher out here. How’s his integration going with you guys?

Lance: Coach Sanjay is one of the best wide receivers coaches I’ve ever seen. He’s very detailed in route running, detailed on little things. He pays attention to very little things that you wouldn’t expect to pay attention to in the game of football. It’s like science, and he breaks it down to you, and it’s so understanding and it slows the game down for us. So for him, it’s a huge help having him.

RJ: Allen Hurns did an interview right after he signed with the Cowboys where he talked about how in his meeting with the Cowboys, Coach Lal taught him some things about his game that he didn’t know before. Did he teach you anything about your game that maybe you weren’t aware of? And if so, what was it?

Lance: Just being detailed about my routes, also being a guy that can be strong outside and inside and slide in and outside at the receiver position. Just being more detailed on my routes and showing how I’m a strong physical receiver and I have good footwork. Detail in those things, and doing the right things, not a lot of false steps and things like that.

RJ: You mention that you guys are a little bit aware of kind of the public perception maybe on a national level. Things that have been said about you guys as a receiver group. Obviously you kind of have this “we’re all we got we’re all we need” sort of mentality. Do you have that sort of mentality across the entire offseason? Across the entire team?

Lance: Oh yea. The whole team is some savages, I think our whole team has got some dogs. You know like we’re big dogs and we’re going to wake the outside world up.

RJ: The other day I saw you had a nice play on an inside route and you beat Byron Jones. You’re playing against him obviously with him making the position switch to cornerback this season, what have you seen from him just from your perception?

Lance: Oh Byron’s been a baller. Byron can do everything, play safety, play corner. He’s real physical and an elusive, fast corner. Long too as well. Those plays where it’s like you have that inch he can go get it. It’s no surprise going out there and making plays. We’re all out there competitive. He may get me and I may get him, so it’s just going out there competing. You just never feel one is better than the other, but at the same time you know we’re out here competing both.

It’s great to hear Lance praising the likes of Sanjay Lal and Byron Jones. It’s also definitely worth noting that he named Terrance Williams when referencing the leadership coming from veteran wide receivers on the Cowboys.

The wide receiver group is a very interesting one this training camp period. Cedrick Wilson is now out of the mix (best wishes to him), but the competition is far from over. Hopefully Lance can make his mark.