(Greg Trott/Associated Press)
Quick-hitting. Straightforward. Revealing. NFL Media's Oklahoma Drill series presents exclusive one-on-one interviews with players and coaches from around the league. No nonsense -- just football experiences directly from the source. Next up, San Francisco 49ers center Marcus Martin. Interview conducted by Ali Bhanpuri on Nov. 12, 2015.
There's always a feeling of angst and anxiety when dealing with being put into a starting role, especially after a guy goes down. I just had to pick up the slack and adjust from there.
I was confident in my abilities, and I was excited to get out on the field and prove what I could do.
A.D. was a mentor for me last year, and Joe Staley has really been a mentor for me this year.
I definitely remember Joe Staley telling me about my note-taking. One thing he always felt was important for his career was his ability to take notes. He was telling me, "You should keep a nice, two-page write-up of every team that we play, just for your files."
A lot of guys are big on rituals. You wake up, you exit the left side of the bed, you play this song, brush your teeth, do things in this order. And I think what I learned from the older guys was how to establish my own game-day ritual.
I like "Jumpman" right now.
Greatness is something that takes time. No matter how hard you chase perfection, perfection always seems to outrun you.
Still chasing it. I feel like right now I'm at the point in my career where everything is all uphill. But I'm taking it in stride. It's not something that I'd say is too difficult, but it's not something that I could say I've mastered completely.
Tomsula and Harbaugh are like night and day. Coach Harbaugh was more outspoken than Tomsula. But Tomsula's energy is different than Harbaugh's. Real blue collar from Tomsula. He kinda understands, and he's able to create this atmosphere when you're talking to him, and he makes you feel so comfortable.
We were all very sad to see Coach Harbaugh go. Obviously, he was a great coach who did a lot of winning here. I personally took it as, I respect this man for everything he taught me. And I'm looking forward to learning from the next guy.
With all those guys leaving, we lost a lot of leadership. It just seemed like the news kept coming. But it also provided a great opportunity for a lot of our young guys, such as myself, to step up into those leadership roles.
I had no idea. Vernon was definitely a mentor to me. He taught me a whole lot. I trained with him this offseason, so I established a pretty good relationship with him. I was just as surprised as everybody else.
Vernon is one of those guys who can turn it on and turn it off really fast. When we were training together, I saw Vernon killing it on the ladder, killing sprints, in full football mode. And then he turns it off, hops on the phone and starts talking about his businesses and paintings and stuff.
Everybody has accepted it. It was news that was delivered and Kap accepted it and Blaine accepted it. And we accepted him as our quarterback.
Man, the feeling of pancaking a guy -- when you start driving somebody and you feel them getting on their toes, and getting light, and they go to reach out for a tackle because they feel like they're in a good position. And then you just finish them.
It's the best feeling in the world. Because, it's like, "Man, I just owned you."
I think the hardest thing about being an offensive lineman is the fact that everybody expects you to do your job 100 percent perfect all the time. With everything in life, there are going to be mistakes that are made.
It's funny, you don't hear about an offensive lineman unless he's playing bad. If an offensive lineman's name is not being brought up, that's a good thing!
We're the front wall. We take everything and let everybody else shine. We take the big hits to create the big lanes for the running backs. We stop the blitzes and pick up the stunts so the receivers can look good and the quarterbacks can look good. That's the only spotlight and feeling that I need for myself, personally -- making those guys look good and doing my job.
In the morning, I like to do omelets or a scramble and oatmeal. For lunch -- I don't really eat lunch a lot. Just because where lunch falls in the day is usually right after a walkthrough, and then I end up lifting and grabbing a protein shake. So I don't get hungry. And then at night time, it depends. You always want to get a good, solid protein, vegetables and carbs. But you know you got your cheat days.
For me it would be something like going to a Morton's Steakhouse and getting the creamed spinach, the filet mignon.
I want to get a nonprofit established in my community. I'm from Los Angeles and I come from an inner-city community, very well-known -- Crenshaw District -- and that's just something that's really important to me.
I want to provide a safe haven for kids after school, and I want them to get tutoring, mentorship and the things they're missing at home. ... Bring guys in, different faces, different leaders from the community, to show them that there are powerful figures within your own community that you don't even know about.
My oldest brother and my father provided that foundation for me.
I've been watching "Empire" a lot. I'm starting to like "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."
I play as everybody. I try to use different teams, because people say if you use this team, it's like cheating. So I just try to show that I can play with anybody.
Patrick Willis. We used to play online. Me and him had some good bouts.
I feel like the difference between a great player and a player who does good things is that a great player is going to help the players around him get better, and the player who does good things is only going to make himself look good.
Peyton Manning. Just because he's the greatest at what he does and he's been the greatest at what he's done for a long time. I honestly respect and admire somebody's game like that, because I want to get my game to a point of consistently being great.
I want people to be able to say that I had an impact on my team in a positive way.
