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“I think one of the best things they do is how well they communicate,” Nichols said. “Even before Goose makes his calls, everybody kinda knows what the call is gonna be. There’s very little, if any, blown protections or blown blocking schemes in the run game. They just do everything right and I think a lot of that does come from being together as long as they have been. They’ve seen every look, they’ve been in every type of game and I feel like they can handle anything.

“It’s nice for me. It’s easier to sleep at night, knowing those guys are out there, and how much they care about keeping Andrew clean, keeping myself clean and they just do an unbelievable job for us.”

They may be a great bunch of guys, but that doesn’t mean they’re nice on the football field.

“The biggest thing for them is their nastiness, first of all,” Nichols said. “I get a lot of comments from guys around the league that don’t like playing against our guys very much.”

Harris puts it this way: “They bring the fight to the opposition instead of the fight coming to them. They attack, they look out for each other and then they celebrate the victories every which way.”

One thing you can say for sure about this group is that they love the way offensive co-ordinator Paul LaPolice calls a game, especially when the plan includes a heaping helping of Harris running the football.

“Technique goes out the window a little bit,” Hardrick said.

“You have to be very technically sound (in pass protection) with a yard off and a guy can wiggle and get a short edge, but when you’re just running full speed into a guy, you don’t have to have a lot of technique for that.”

However they get the job done, Harris is on board with it and as long as the holes keep opening, the burgers and blizzards will keep on coming.

“We take care of each other in a lot of different ways,” Harris said. “Just some burgers are good enough to keep those guys happy.

“They’re humble. It’s the collective unit that they’re satisfied about, it’s not just individuals. Even with myself, everyone has been talking about my career-high game, but it’s really a unit and I like celebrating with the five-six guys that contribute to that.”

Twyman@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/Ted_Wyman