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ARTICLE
STEELERS HEAD COACH BILL COWHER
PRESS CONFERENCE Team Pass members can watch Bill Cowher's press conference.
Coach Cowher: Let me give you
the injury update as we get ready for Sunday’s game. James Harrison is doubtful
with an ankle. The following players are probable for the game: James Farrior
with a calf, Kimo [von Oelhoffen] with a knee, Ben [Roethlisberger] with his
thumb, Travis Kirschke with a groin, Deshea [Townsend] with a knee, Joey
[Porter] with a hip, Larry Foote with his knee and Chidi [Iwuoma] with a
shoulder. We got through the game pretty good. We anticipate having all those
players that are probable and we’ll see how James is at the end of the week. In regard to the Indianapolis game,
I know a lot of the talk has taken place with the officiating. The reversal, as
the league has come out and talked about Troy’s [Polamalu] interception. The
biggest thing to understand is that all of our questions have been answered. The
league got back to us yesterday about that. It’s important now that we move on.
I’m not going to sit here and talk about it. Our officials are doing the very
best that they can do. Obviously at times there are going to be mistakes made.
To me those guys are human like the rest of us. We’re moving on. Joey’s [Porter]
comments after the game were certainly out of frustration. We have a 15 minute
cooling off period. We have some guys that can probably use a little longer than
that. That’s to be said. There is no conspiracy or things of that nature. That’s
ridiculous. We were fortunate to come out of
that football game. We played well. We did some things well, but when you look
at it, the fact that we had two turnovers and did not have any takeaways. When
you go through a game minus two in the turnover/takeaway and still win the game
you’re fortunate. We did a lot of good things in all three phases last week. As
we’re getting ready to go to Denver it’s going to take another superior effort
on our part. [They are] a football team that has not lost at home this year.
They are 9-0. If you look at them offensively they are second in the National
Football League in rushing. They have the fewest turnovers in the National
Football League. Defensively I believe they’re second in the National Football
League in rush defense and they’ve got the fourth most takeaways in the league.
You look at them and they are right behind Cincinnati with, I think, a plus-20
(+20) in the turnover/takeaway. This is a football team that will not beat
itself and can force you into mistakes. I think they have the best signal-caller
in the game today in Mike Shanahan. We will have to prepare for everything. He’s
one of those guys that whatever you saw last week, you won’t see it again. He’ll
give you regular people on third down and long. He’ll spread you out on third
down and short. We’ve got to be prepared for anything and everything. He does a
great job of keeping you off balance. [Jake] Plummer is having an outstanding
year, a Pro Bowl year in my opinion. He’s making great decisions. He’s mobile
outside the pocket. He’s probably a little different and most contrasting to
Peyton [Manning] from the standpoint, we wanted to collapse the pocket and get
Peyton outside. In this situation with Jake we want to keep him in the pocket.
He’s very, very dangerous outside of it. This is a whole different approach this
week for us defensively. We have not played this football team before. They are
playing with a tremendous amount of confidence. This is a big challenge for us,
but one we are looking forward to certainly. We will have to play our best
football, better than we played last week and I mean that sincerely to have a
chance to compete against this team, they are playing at a very high
level. Is the pressure all on
Denver? At this point in time, I don’t know
if there is pressure on anybody. We know the opportunity that’s there. It is a
big challenge there is no question about it. It was a big challenge last week
and I think this one is a little bit greater from the standpoint that they
[Indianapolis] had to come off the bye. They’ve [Denver] got the win under their
belts. They probably feel that they can play a lot better than they did last
week. They beat the defending World Champions, who had not lost a [playoff]
football game since Tom Brady has taken over. They are playing at a high level,
playing with confidence in a place they have not lost this
year. Can you talk about the emotions of
last week and can you duplicate that this week? This is another step. We looked at
last week. We’re playing one game right now. We’re just trying to live to fight
another day. That’s how we’re playing this game. We have been in this mode, and
I’ve said this before and maybe I’m saying some of the same things I said last
week, I just don’t see it being any different. The only thing different is that
we’ve gotten a little bit further to go on this trip. There are a lot of
obstacles that go with that. We’re not going to reflect on anything. You can’t
draw off of anything. We’ve got to focus on this week. It’s going to be very,
very important. We have not played this football team. It don’t know how much of
this team we have seen in the cross study of teams. It’s going to take utilizing
every bit of time we have this week in our preparation. If we don’t have a good
week of preparation we will not perform and squander an opportunity. Is it a
tough challenge? Yes it’s a tough
challenge, but it’s an opportunity we have and we’ve got to try to seize that.
To reflect and speculate will take away from the time we have to prepare to play
this football team. Can you talk about your offense and
defensive coordinators? We’ve done a good job this year. The
players have done an excellent job of preparing each week. A lot of the times
you have an extensive game plan. You see how it unfolds early. You utilize that
to an extent of how the game is unfolding. We’ve got a good coaching staff. You
talk about the chemistry with football teams, I think there is very good
chemistry on this staff. They are a very selfless group of guys that work hard
at it. Along with the players, there is a good blend of that here. They take to
heart all of the things that are being told to them, the little things. We spend
a lot of extra time working together. They’ve done a good job. We’re going to
need every little bit of effort this week. This will be a big
challenge. Can you talk about your relationship
with Mike Shanahan? I interviewed Mike in 1992 and
offered him the job [offensive coordinator]. He went to San Francisco at the
time. His record speaks for itself. The guy has won two Super Bowls. The guy is
in the playoffs perennially every year. Everyone talks about our rushing
offense, they to me, have got the premier rushing offense. There are some people
that might take exception, but if you take a back and put them in that offense,
I’m not taking anything away from the backs that have gone through that offense
trust me on that, Terrell Davis don’t take exception to this because you ran
through us back in 1997. He has a system there that is as good a running system
there that has been in the game. You can take a lot of the backs that have gone
through there and they flourish. It’s a good scheme and it keeps you off
balance. I’ve got a lot of admiration for Mike and what they’ve done. Is there running scheme unique to
the NFL? No it’s not unique; they are just
very efficient at it. A lot of people try to emulate it. They’ve got a
commitment to it. They get the right type of people that fit it. They’ve been
very good at doing it year in and year out. What makes Shanahan the best play
caller in the league? The fact that he’s unpredictable is
what makes it hard. We’re going to have to be on top of our P’s and Q’s in
making adjustments to see what his plan is; whether it’s to come out spreading
the field with Plummer, or lining with three tight ends trying to hammer the
ball against us. They do a great job. We’re going to have to be prepared to
make some adjustments through the course of this game; there is no doubt about
that. We’ll have a plan going in and it’s going to be one of those things that
we are going to have to make adjustments on the fly. Can you talk about their ability on
the perimeter? Their linebackers are excellent. D.J
Williams, Al Wilson and Ian Gold, I’ve always been a big Ian Gold guy. I thought
he was a great player coming out of Michigan. Their defensive line has a lot of
guys we played against last year in Cleveland, [Michael] Myers, [Ebenezer] Ekuban, Gerard Warren and
Courtney Brown. Those linebackers can flow and the safeties are pretty active.
[Nick] Ferguson and [John] Lynch are like linebackers at times when they are in
the box. They give you a lot of different looks. Champ Bailey is one of the top
corners, if not the top corner, in the National Football League. They have a
couple of young kids that have stepped in and played very well for them. [Domonique] Foxworth is a kid from
Maryland and Darrent Williams, they have made a lot of plays. Like I said they
are fourth in the league in takeaways. There is no surprise when you watch them
play. They are very active. They will come after you, they will put pressure.
You will see a lot of guys at the line of scrimmage. Some times they’ll come and
sometimes they’ll bail. You’re going to have to be ready to handle the blitz and
at the same time not panic when they drop out of there and turn the football
over. Can you talk about Bryant McFadden’s
play? The best thing that Bryant didn’t do
was panic. He had his back, played the ball, felt the receiver. That was how you wan to play it. There
was no pass interference on that play. He played honest coverage. He didn’t jump
it and didn’t panic at the ball. He’s made a lot of plays that way. He’s getting
better. He’ll be the first to tell you that there are some things he can do
better and I think he will. For a first year guy to come in, I think a lot of
those guys are playing well in the role that they have. How bad would you have felt if
Jerome Bettis’ last carry was the fumble? I would not have felt as bad as
Jerome would have felt. It didn’t happen so we still have another game to play.
We’ll go from there. How much trust do you have in your
you quarterback and how much trust does his teammates have in
him? I don’t look at him as a young
quarterback to be honest. He’s been doing this for two seasons. To me he has
earned that trust. He has a good feel for the game. In a lot of respects we are
going to be able to go as far as he’s going to take us. I’m not trying to put
any pressure on him. That’s the facts and he likes that, he knows that. You’ve
got to have balance. In this league if you’re one dimensional you’re not going
to get where you want to go. We understand that and we think we have some
weapons around him and at the same time we’re not going to try to lose our
identity. Part of that is having balance and trying to do some things that maybe
against what people think you are. We’ve played some high scoring games. Ben has
proven the ability to do that. You look at our second Cincinnati game, we did a
lot of good things. People thought we got away from the run too fast, but I
don’t know how you can fault scoring 30-something points. We just turned the
football over and gave up a few big plays. We have a lot of confidence in him
and he has a lot of confidence in the people around him an in our offensive line
and in our signal-callers in making the good calls. That’s all a part of having
a good, balanced offense. Will you do anything to help deal
with the altitude in Denver? No, we’ll talk about it tomorrow.
The biggest thing is hydrating, making sure you get enough food in your body.
We’ll stick to our normal schedule a lot like New England did last week. We’ll
get out there late Saturday and we’ll play Sunday. I don’t think it will have
much of an affect. When you were with the Browns didn’t
you go to Albuquerque to help prepare? We did because we were forced to go
in two days before. Going in as late as we’re going in, I don’t think it will
have as big of an affect. We had to go in two days before when we went down to
Albuquerque. Did going to Albuquerque
help? We lost the game. The fumble,
everybody remembers the fumble drive. I guess that answers that question.
Was altitude a factor in
2003? I don’t remember it being. I didn’t
think that it was. That’s when we were substituting linemen instead of receivers
on third down. I don’t think it will be much of a factor. Did jumping up 14-0 on Indianapolis
allow you to be more aggressive? I thought going in, and we talked
about it the night before, when a team has time off there is a little bit of
acclimation back to the speed of the game. We knew we had a chance to jump on
them early in the game. When you look at Denver too, I think it’s very important
that we start fast because they have been a notoriously fast starting team. If
you get behind against them then you’ll play right into their hands with their
running game, with their defense. It is very important that we start fast in
this game just because of Denver’s history, what they’ve done this year and how
they play the game. We talk about getting off to a fast start. There’s no
question that that helped because it dictated some things we were able to do. We
play our game much better when we’re ahead. That’s probably true for a lot of
teams. It’s very important because Denver has been a fast starting team. It’s
important that we try to match that this week. What will you tell your team about
how precious this opportunity is? Right now the biggest is not so much
looking at the end, it’s a very short term focus that we have right now. We’ve
been in this mindset for about the last month and a half. I don’t see it being
any different. I really don’t. The focus has to be on this game and this team.
As I stated earlier, there’s no reference point. We played Cincinnati before; we
played Indianapolis before. This is the first time we’ve played this team. We
have not seen them a lot. Our focus is purely on Denver in a short period of
time and we have to have a good week of preparation. To talk about anything else
would be irrelevant. The bottom line is our preparation because a lot of times
our play is reflected in how we prepare. Is mobility more difficult to defend
in a quarterback? I don’t know if it’s more difficult.
It’s kind of like the awareness of backs. Tatum Bell is in there and he’s got
some serious speed. Mike Anderson is a good cut back runner, power runner. You
have to be aware of that. Containment issue is going to be more of an issue just
in the awareness and discipline that we have to have defensively with Jake
[Plummer] because of his mobility. A lot of bootlegs on both sides that we’re
going to have to be prepared for and more disciplined in our rush lanes.
Is the us-versus-the-world mentality
a positive and do you encourage it? We are traveling a path right now
that no one else has been on. However you want to view that, it will be a big
challenge for us. But we certainly aren’t going to let history dictate our
journey. As I told the players a lot of times, your journey can make history.
That’s kind of the mindset that we have. Coaches prefer to be at home, but
your players seem to favor the road. We’re not at home. We’re on the
road. We’re playing a team that has not lost at home all year. No team has ever
been where we are. That’s not going to discourage us. Does it make the challenge
great? Absolutely. But at the same time we have to seize this opportunity. We’re
going to do everything we can to prepare ourselves to go up there and do that.
Can you bounce back after such an
emotional win? Every win at this point has been
emotional because we have no margin of error. I’m serious about that. I don’t
see how this last win was any more emotional. If we can win this game, we have
an opportunity to play another one. That’s how you look at it. This is no
different than it was last week. We came off an emotional game, if you want to
call it that, against Cincinnati. Emotions are high right now and they should
be. You should be playing with a lot of emotions as long as you’re able to walk
that line. We did a good job last week. We had one penalty in that game. We had
two, but on one we took a delay of game on a punt. We had one penalty on
defense. So we played the game with high emotions. We played the game with
discipline. We played the game the way you need to play it and we’re going to
have to do that again to even have a chance to compete against this team
[Denver]. Is this team more a product of
coaching than other years? I think it’s all a combination of
working together. The players are the one’s who play the game, let’s face. They
have to have trust in the things that you’re asking them to do. There’s got to
be communication that takes place with what you’re telling them in a short
period of time. It all goes hand-in-hand. You look at good organizations and
teams that are successful, there’s a trust and relationship that exists between
players and coaches that’s one-in-one. We have that here. It’s very, very
healthy around here. You can see how we work and how we practice. It’s not just
offense guys and offensive coaches or defensive coaches with defensive players.
It’s a whole football team. This is a true football team that truly cares about
one another. The other day when the offense was up I was trying to talk to the
defense. Half the defensive players are watching the offense and vice-versa. Not
many people are sitting on the bench and I think that speaks volumes about your
team. Is it too simple to say that
whichever team runs the ball better will win? You can say whatever you want. I
think there are a lot of factors that go into it. I do know that they have a
plus-20 (+20) turnover/takeaway ratio. That is a big part of their success. They
took the football away five times against New England, who rarely has
interceptions, who rarely turns it over. Obviously it’s not just New England.
[Denver] was plus-5 (+5) last week against the defending two-time world
champions who know how to play playoff football. If we don’t take care of the
football we will be the next victim. If we take care of the football, hopefully
we’ll have a chance to be in it in the fourth quarter and that’s all we’re
asking. Can you talk about Denver’s turnover
ratio? The plus/minus is not just
indicative of their defense. Jake has thrown the fewest interceptions in the
National Football League. They don’t turn the football over on offense.
Defensively they can pressure you. You’re going to see 11 guys at the line of
scrimmage sometimes. You’re going to see their safeties and everybody up there.
They could all run out and at other times they will run right at you. You better
be able to protect; you better be able to handle the pressure; you better be
able to sit in the pocket at times. You may those three-and-outs; you may have
to punt, just don’t make a bad play. It’s one of those games that we’re going to
have to be patient and understand that they’re going to make plays. They do it
against everybody. You just don’t want to have a bad play. That’s going to be
the challenge that we face this week. Can you talk about their defensive
backs against your receivers? Mike [Shanahan] does a great job of
giving you different looks. They’ll move those guys around. He’ll have regular
people in there. He’s got some tight ends that can play: [Stephen] Alexander,
[Jeb] Putzier and even [Wesley] Duke is a heck of an athlete. On third
down-and-long he’ll have one receiver out there. He’ll give you different looks.
Rod Smith is an outstanding receiver. He’s got excellent hands. He’s burned us
before. [Ashley] Lelie is a big time speed guy. He’s got good guys that
compliment one another. He’s got a good compliment of tight ends, backs that
catch the ball out of the backfield and the quarterback right now is playing
with a lot of confidence. Do they do more cut-blocking than
most teams? I don’t if it’s anymore than anybody
else. We’ll look at the film. They’ll understand what they’re going
against. How tough is it to coach and play in
Denver? It’s loud. I don’t know if it’s so
much the noise. It seems like there are always good football teams out there.
John Elway, when I was an assistant, sent me to the Pro Bowl a couple of times.
They’ve had good quarterbacks. They flourish under Mike’s system. I think you’re
seeing the case again with Jake Plummer. He’s gotten more and more comfortable
every year, making good decisions. They do a good job of doing what they do
best. They get him out of the pocket at times and they run the football. They
play good defense and they always have. I don’t know if it’s so much Invesco
Field. The football team that you’re playing against is usually pretty
good. What is your philosophy on rotating
Jerome Bettis and Willie Parker? We get Jerome in usually around the
goal line. If we don’t get to the goal line we get him in on the second or third
series. I’m not sure how [Denver] does it. There is no written Script for us.
Did you know Denver defensive
coordinator Larry Coyer when he was at Pitt? I really didn’t,
no. What is the key to your success on
the road? Just the mindset. We’ve played well.
Maybe you’re more conscious of the little things. For the most part we have not
turned the football over. We’ve played smart. That’s going to be very important
going into this game. We did have a good week of preparation last week. It’s
going to be loud. You’re facing a good defense. You’re facing an offense that’s
going to put a lot of pressure on you. They’re going to run the ball. [They
have] a little bit more commitment to run than we’ve faced the last couple
weeks. Getting off to a fast start will be very important and just keep playing.
We’ve been in some games where we had to come from behind. If we don’t beat
ourselves with penalties and turnovers and give ourselves a chance to be in
there in the fourth quarter, hopefully somewhere in there we can make a play.
Can a cut-back runner take advantage
of a fired-up defense? It’s not because you’re too fired
up. If you’re a fast flowing defense, and at times we can be, it’s just a matter
of awareness. Playing good run defense is just being discipline in your gap
control and knowing where your help is. That’s the one things we take a lot of
pride in. You’re safeties have to be active and good tacklers. You’re corners
have to show up when they’re asked to show up in run support. It takes everybody
being coordinated, being discipline, being able to stay on their feet, getting
to the football and you have to be good tacklers. Is Ben Roethlisberger’s arm
okay? Yeah, he’s probable with a thumb.
Did you teach Roethlisberger how to
tackle? He’s a competitive guy. He’s a heck
of an athlete. He really is a very good athlete. He was just trying to make a
play and he made a play. It was a great individual effort on his part. It was a
great tackle. It was a super play on his part. Hopefully he want have to do
anymore of that. How hard is it to get over last
year? Every year is a new year. The only
time it comes up is when people ask you about it. It is what it is. I’m just
looking forward to the opportunity that we have this year.
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