JALEN PITRE: What up? How y'all doing?
Q. What was the like to see John out there?
JALEN PITRE: It's really inspiring seeing him fight back and do everything that he's been doing. He's a guy that I want on my team I know there's no quit in a guy like that. He's continuing to show up and continuing to fight. That's big for me and inspiring.
Q. How did you spend your summer?
JALEN PITRE: Thinking about football, yeah. The whole time I was ready to go. Went to Hawaii with coach and a couple of the Texans, got some good workouts there. Just resting my body to get ready for now. I'm ready to go.
Q. What does it mean to you to have Laremy Tunsil call you one of the top five safeties in the league already?
JALEN PITRE: It's huge, when I can gain that respect from a great player, somebody on my team. It means the world to me. I'm going to continue to work hard and continue to push myself to the limit.
Q. Did you say Hawaii?
JALEN PITRE: Hawaii.
Q. Sounds like a good place to work out.
JALEN PITRE: Yeah, it was pretty hot. But there was a cool breeze, no humidity. It was fun.
Q. Who was there?
JALEN PITRE: It was me, Sting, Jacoby and Christian Harris.
Q. And Jimmie, how exciting is that?
JALEN PITRE: A great tandem. When I can go out there and play with somebody that's that good. Plays with his hair on fire, a guy that wants to hit. I love guys that don't shy away from contact. Things like that are inspiring to me because I'm always trying to push him and he's always trying to push me.
It's always some give-and-take there. It's always growth in that. I'm blessed to be able to play with him.
Q. What is something that you did this off-season that you really feel like helped helps your game to improve this year?
JALEN PITRE: Yeah, just working on my patience and my back pedal. I do play deep a lot, whether that's in the post or in the half. Having a control pedal, standing square, not turning my hips, giving the quarterback a key on which way I'm going to go was a main focus on a lot of things I was doing this off-season. I'm looking forward to putting that on tape and doing that this season.
Q. This defensive scheme that you're in, does it limit you from being that aggressive or does it feed right into what you like to do?
JALEN PITRE: Oh, no, it's all about running to the ball, being mean when you get there. I think Coach DeMeco preaches that. He wants us all to be aggressive. I'm going to continue to do that, continue to try to be the first one to the ball.
Q. What did y'all work on in Hawaii?
JALEN PITRE: A lot of change of direction, a lot of ball drills. A lot of footwork on the line. I don't play corner, but we were doing a lot of man work, whether that was off man or even press man. Just getting to work and see different releases and stuff like that.
You can never work too much or you can never master it. You always working, continuing to get better and better. That was kind of the whole thing of why we went out to Hawaii.
Q. Did you get a chance to sit down and talked about each other?
JALEN PITRE: Oh, yeah, it was good, to just connect. I feel like me, Stingley, Jacoby and Christian spent a good amount of time together. But it's always good to go somewhere else and do it. It was cool to go out on the beach, chill with them, work out with them, continue to connect with my teammates.
Q. You spend so much time with Stingley, what are things you're seeing from him?
JALEN PITRE: Yeah, he's a dog. He's hungry. I'm really confident in his ability. I think he's a great player. I think he wants to get better.
I think the biggest thing that a lot of people can't really see at corner is the smartness and his ability to understand everything that's going on around him. He's one of the smartest corners I've ever played with.
We play Madden a lot together. I can obviously see it on there. He knows the route concepts, every route concept there is. He knows the coverage. He knows football. It's always good to play with a guy that understands football from a holistic standpoint.
Q. I imagine you grew up playing Madden. How much did that help you with your football?
JALEN PITRE: Yeah, Madden helped me a lot because believe it or not, a lot of the route concepts, really all of the route concepts that these NFL teams are running, is on the game. When you're playing around and you picking these plays, these are plays that these offensive coordinators are picking. Obviously their knowledge of the game is lot further than us. These are the same plays.
If you continue to see that, you continue to put that in your mind, when you get out onto the field, you start seeing it, it's going to start to click and click.
I think it's a good rep for you to get on Madden and just look at stuff. It's obviously fun, too.
Q. Madden, who is winning these games?
JALEN PITRE: Yeah, I'm not going to put that out there (smiling). Yeah, probably Sting. Probably Sting.
Q. Happy with your rating?
JALEN PITRE: I'm not really worried about that now. I seen it. Obviously I have a lot more work to do, a lot more things I want to accomplish, especially team-wise. I'm not really putting that much focus onto that right now.
Q. You and Sting and Christian had roles last year. You also are still young in this team. How do you balance being more vocal leaders, getting advice from veterans?
JALEN PITRE: I think the biggest thing is having no ego, being selfless, and also being open to learning.
Obviously, like I said, Stingley knows a great amount about the game. Christian knows a great amount about the game. When you approach every day like you know nothing, I think that's where you continue to see the growth you want to see and you continue to build on that.
Just come in every day with that mindset of I need to learn more, I'm trying to learn something different. I think that's what we've all tried to do.
Q. What does it do to have guys that already been defensive coordinators to show you the ropes?
JALEN PITRE: It's big. I think he does a great job at communicating what he's looking for, making it very clear. So when you have a coach that does that, I think it makes it really easy for you as a player to go out there and put it on the field or try to put it on the field, continue to work to master that.
Q. (Question about the scheme.)
JALEN PITRE: Yeah, definitely. Jimmie has played in the system. He knows a good amount about the system. A lot of players that play here have played on other teams with this system. They have great knowledge. I'm looking forward to continuing to learn from them.
Q. As a Texan, you probably know more than anybody that the city of Houston has a complicated and beautiful, unusual relationship with the NFL. Not all Houston Texans are Houston Texans fans. The people that are interested in the team, want to come onboard, be a part of NFL football, what do you have to say to those people?
JALEN PITRE: That's a great question.
I don't know if I have an answer for that, but I would probably just say that we're out here working hard, we're trying to master our craft and continue to get better.
Q. In what ways is this team different, have y'all grown?
JALEN PITRE: Obviously we have new players, new scheme. But I think just the confidence is continuing to grow with us, especially myself as a younger player just continuing to see things and continuing to learn. I think that's the biggest thing.
Our confidence is just continuing to grow and continue to get better. When you can do that, I think you can go out on the field and make more plays and in turn lead to more wins.
Q. You talk about spending time together. How does that impact to what you do on the field?
JALEN PITRE: Yeah, I think that's everything. Your relationship with people on and off the field in turn has a huge correlation to how y'all communicate on the field and how you play for each other.
That's the most important thing of this camp, is building our relationship with my teammates in order for them to trust me, in order for us to all go out there and trust each other, to play harder for each other. I think that's the most important thing, just that trust and that relationship, for sure.
Thank, y'all. Have a good one.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports