Ja'Wuan James enjoyed every minute of his first NFL game

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
Ja'Wuan James, drafted in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft, got his first taste of live NFL action on Friday night against the Atlanta Falcons and played well into the second half. However, he loved every second of it and was thankful for the extended playing time as it gave him a chance to keep on getting better. 

“I wanted that because the first drive I did all right, the second drive was kind of bumpy, so I was like, I want to redeem myself,” James said. “He let me stay in there. Got a bunch of reps, so I got a bunch of reps I could go look at on film and get better from. It (gave us) a lot of confidence. My first NFL drive was a touchdown. That was pretty cool. But we’ve got to try to continue that out throughout the season.” 

However, James isn't settling for just a good performance on Friday and feels that he can do better.

“Definitely feel like I can play better,” was James’ assessment of his performance. “Going out there for the first time, that first drive was crazy for me. But I’m going to watch the film and everything, talk about it, get the fundamentals down, things like that so I can go out work on them at practice and it’ll be better vs. Tampa Bay (on Saturday night).” 

Head Coach Joe Philbin agrees and said that as the game went on, James got better.

“He was OK early on, but I thought he got himself kind of into a groove a little bit, felt a little bit comfortable as the game progressed,” Philbin said. “There’s still a lot of room (for improvement), but I thought for the first time he did a solid job.” 

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