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ARTICLE
BENGALS QUOTES
HEAD COACH MARVIN LEWIS Obviously it was a very hard fought
football game today, much like we expected. I talk to the guys all the time
about having to play 60-minutes and it came down to that today. (I tell them) don't flinch and worry
about things that are going on. There will be a lot of ups and downs and a lot
of positive plays and negative plays and don't let those things get in the way.
Keep your eye on the target, keep playing and I thought our guys did a great job
of that today. We started out slow on third downs on both sides of the ball and
it really caused us problems the first half. We have to do a better job of that.
Was it Richardo Colclough's fumbled
catch that turned things around for your team? I don't know, I'm not going to
decide that. I'll let you guys decide that. What does T.J. Houshmandzadeh mean
to the team? I thought T.J. obviously made the
big play. There were a lot of big plays today, but T.J. came in and gave us some
real productive stats and did a nice job and fought through a really slow start.
It was good to have him back. It was good to have Levi Jones out there too. He fought today--he fought
hard. When you look at
Well, we won the football game,
that's the most important thing. I'll let you fool with the numbers. At the end
of the year it's about winning the most football games. Is it more special of a win since
you did it in your hometown? I think it's good to win a
divisional game on the road, that's the most important thing. It's not about me.
It's most important for us to win a divisional football game on the road against
a very good team, the defending Super Bowl champions. That's the key and we have
a tough game next week. Talk about the performance of the
offensive line. They did their job and locked him
up. We'll go back to work this week. No matter what happens today, I told them
we'll go back to work. Talk about the play of Chris
Henry. He made two nice plays and it was
good to see. He just has to keep
his composure and keep playing. Talk about converting mistakes to
points. Both teams had an opportunity to do
that. It went both ways. We're just fortunate to win
today. What about the 97-yard
drive? That was big, that was a big drive.
We got the interception there with the defense and kept points off the board
from them and were able to get points on the board for us. That was a big drive.
At that point we hadn't had a lot of success moving the football, but we were
able to put some plays together and keep grinding it out and that did
it. They beat us in the playoffs. When
you lose in the playoffs, you fall off a cliff. Unfortunately our quarterback
got hurt, but that's just part of the game. We lost the playoff game and (the
Steelers) went on to be World Champions. They are in our division, and in my
opinion, I'm very happy for them because I know the best team in the National
Football League last year in is our division. I thought that was a good thing.
They showed us, as a football team, how you do it. When your backs are against
the wall, you go play football. You don't talk about it, you just go play.
That's what they did. They were a great example for us. It helps every time we get together.
It helps us every time we get started. If I sit there and make excuses about
this and about that and am worried about this and worried about that, it's about
playing football. They were a great example for us. Are you happy with the mind-set of
your team? We just keep doing it one week at a
time. We keep gathering all our eggs in a basket and trying to be as good as we
can be. That's what we have to do. We need to keep playing football that way and
I think our team is taking that approach and they understand what that means. It
was good today. There were a lot of negatives and we were able to overcome that
with a lot of positives and that's the good thing. That's what the National
Football League is all about. Talk about the play of Justin Smith
and Robert Geathers. Ben's a very tough quarterback to
sack. He avoids the rush a lot and if you don't get the ends buttoned up, and
sometimes you're too high, too low, and he makes a lot of moves with his feet.
Again we were fortunate to get out of it with a win. 15 – Chris Henry
(WR) Does it surprise you
to see Actually, I know he
felt just like me because when he got injured last year, I was injured on the
same play. For me, I really
couldn't wait to get out here and play. What about you on
one-on-one coverage. When
That's all you've got
to do is make a play on the ball.
What about the
Steelers defense, they do a lot of talking out there don't
they? Yeah, uh, that's kind
of their style of play. That's just
how they do it. You can't get mad,
it's all a competition. You and Ike Taylor had
a pretty good battle today.
He's out there trying
to compete and that's all it is.
How bitter is this
rivalry between these two teams? It's a big one. We really keyed on this game. We wanted to come in and get the victory
so we could keep on going on our season.
This is real big for us. Did you feel extra
motivation because of what happened to Yeah. Two for you and two
for T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Does that
prove to the league that there is more to this team than
Oh yeah. We're deep. People don't recognize that, but we're
going to prove it to them.
That was quite a shot
you took. Did you lose your
wind? Yeah. I lost my wind. I got hit right in the stomach. It hurt pretty
bad. What about the first
touchdown. It looked like it was
just thrown up there for you. Yeah, he just threw it
up. A high thrown ball, I just had
to go out and make a play. That's
what I do. What about the 21-yard
TD you caught. It looked like you
almost dropped it.
No. I wasn't going to drop it. I don't know what happened. I guess I bobbled it a
bit. How did you come back
so quickly after that hit? Like I said, I just
lost my wind. Where did it hit you
exactly? I don't know. I just knew I was trying to get my
breath back. I was in a little pain
for a little bit, but I'm always going to bounce up. 32 – Rudi Johnson
(RB) Talk about what it is
like winning this game. Everybody made
plays. The defense, special teams
too. We just stayed together for
four quarters and that's what it came down to. Because of what
happened in the playoffs to It does. But we expect to win. We expect to come in here and win this
ball game. But we knew coming in
that it was going to take everything we had. That's what it boiled down to. They made plays, we made plays and it
went back and forth up and down and the game could have gone either way, but we
stayed together and fought together as a family and pulled it out. Why did you expect to
win? We expect to win every
game. We're a better team than we
were last year. We expect to be in
I guess you never
expected them to pull away from you and you probably never expected you to pull
away from them. It was going to be
that kind of game.
Oh yeah. It was one of those games where you've
got to keep playing. Everybody gets
frustrated at times, but you have to keep playing, keep playing, keep
playing. We talked about that all
during the week. That's what it
showed today as evidence. If we
wouldn't have stayed together on the sidelines communicating the game would have
gone a different way. But we stayed
together, communicated, and pulled together, everybody got closer and closer,
plays were being made and we were able to capitalize. How significant is
this game for you? It's a big win. Super Bowl Champions, so say no
more. They won the Super Bowl,
they've run this division for a long time, so for us to come in and put our foot
down it says a lot.
What did it mean when
Tony Stewart jumped on the fumble recovery on the punt? That was right when we
needed it. That's why I talk about
everybody making plays. They made
plays on their side of the ball, too, but we made plays throughout four quarters
of football, and that's really what it came down. The game could have gone either way.
Last week it was
you. This week, it wasn't you. Is that what this team is showing
offensively.
Everybody makes plays,
we've got a lot of weapons on this team.
T.J. came in and he hasn't played in four weeks, and made great plays all
up and down the field. That's what
it's all about. Everyone has to
step up and do their part. When
their number is called, step up and
make plays. Can you talk about the
resiliency of this team with the momentum going back and forth. It's just how close we
are. How close we are, how we
expect to pull it out, how we expect to win, and how, no matter what we stay
together. We're all going to stay
together. That's what showed and
that's what brought us through today.
97 – John Thornton
(DT) On the quality of
play. One we got the
turnovers, our offense did put them away.
This wasn't pretty at all.
They're not supposed to be pretty.
It's not supposed to be. All
of our games, including our preseason games have been over at halftime. This is good for
us. How about the blocked
field goal.
That was good. All the guys keyed on that coming into
the game. Coach just called the
right call got my hand up and it hit it. Where is this team
right now after this win? I think we're a much
better team mentally. We didn't
fold under pressure. We just keep
going. This if my fourth year here
with coach and everybody is really taking on his personality. No matter what happens, we can always
come back. I don't think we have
any selfish players. Sometimes
being selfish is good if you want to make a play. Just make sure we do it together. I don't mind anybody being selfish, as
long as how they do it doesn't affect the team. Are you as pleased
with the mindset that led to this win? Yeah, because it was
tough. We came up here, we knew
that they were desperate, it was a division game. We didn't make this game too big. I'm glad we didn't do that. We could have got down as soon as things
didn't go our way. We just
fought. There was no time during
the game where we were down. We
seemed to get turnovers at the right time, our offense to play well, the
defense, we stopped them at the right time. It wasn't pretty. Who cares about that. We're walking out
of here 3-0. Those guys are 1 and 2
and we did a good job. Talk about the 97-yard
drive after the interception. That was big. They were on their way to being up
14-0. Being up here, that would
have been real tough. We held
them. We got that interception and
that was good. If these guys get up
14-0, you might not see another pass the rest of the game. So we dodged a bullet there. Ben made a mistake and we capitalized on
it. They ran the ball
pretty well.
Yeah, they did. But we bucked down. They hit us on some blitzes. When you blitz, just like we did with
Rudi, we caught them in blitzes and that's going to happen. They never got up big on us. That's how I know we did a good job
because we didn't let the game get out of hand. It goes back and forth. We stopped them a couple of times, and
they got first downs. It was back
and forth. I don't worry about the
little stats, but the big one is that we won. What does it say that
a lot of things went wrong and you still came out with the
victory? It just tells you that
people really don't know. Everybody
says that this has to happen, this has to happen, but I think we did a pretty
good job of not letting them control the game. Like you said, even though they got some
rushing yards, they didn't control the game with that, because we got a lot of
tackles for losses. They hit us on
some blitzes. If you hit somebody
on a blitz that's easy once you get past the line of scrimmage. Willie Parker did a good job, but I
think we still held him to where we wanted to where it didn't get out of
hand. 91 – Robert
Geathers It seemed like the
turnovers came at the right time for you. Right time, man. We knew the offense was struggling a
little bit in the second half, and we had to step up and that's what we
did. Big momentum swing in
the first half. How did that feel
for you? Great. It felt great. It's a team effort and when we were
struggling they stepped up, when they were struggling we stepped
up. Do you think the
Steelers miss Randle-El returning punts? It looked like they
did. No matter who is back there,
those guys are going to make mistakes.
We capitalized on it.
Do you think the wind
had anything to do with that? I'm not sure.
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