> ”There were times in camp I wasn’t getting the ball at all,” Flournoy said. “I was probably wide receiver-seven \[on the depth chart\].”
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> After leading the team in receiving in that final exhibition, Flournoy secured one of the final spots on the 53-man roster, but he also knew that it could be short-lived. Mingo was set to return after four weeks, and Brooks and Jalen Cropper were hot on his tail off the practice squad. To keep his value on the roster high, he homed in on a craft that he began to specialize in late in his rookie season.
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> “I took special teams serious. I still do,” he said. “I knew in order to make the team, I had to make myself available and dominate. That’s what the last two preseason games consisted of, just really locking in on special teams.”
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> The plan worked. Flournoy hung around on the roster, and it allowed him to step into a big opportunity when CeeDee Lamb when down for three games with a high ankle sprain earlier this season.
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> Going into the team’s Week 5 matchup against the New York Jets, Flournoy noticed a lot of plays drawn up for him to be the first read. It was something he had not seen in a regular-season game to that point in his career.
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> “It skyrocketed \[my confidence\],” he said. “The trust the coaches gave me, I remember going into the meeting Jets week, and we didn’t have no conversations or nothing. I had just seen plays drawn up for me, and I was like, ‘Oh, they trust me. I got to step up.’ That just boosted my confidence. They see what I see in myself.”