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ARTICLE
Steelers Quotes - Below
HEAD COACH BILL COWHER Let me just say that we have great players, a resilient group of guys. I can't say enough about the effort that they put forth, and it's good to be on the plus side of one of those statistical games where you'd think that you would have lost, although we did run the football pretty well. We went through a game without turning the football over and we were able to get a few fumbles today. The ball bounced our way outside of the one touchdown that they got. I don't know if that was a designed play. Someone said it was a designed play. I said, 'I'd like to see how they practice that.' I've never seen anything like that. That was unbelievable. I lost the ball. I thought it was a fumble-rooski. I totally lost the ball. It was just a resilient effort on our football team's part. Did you challenge Willie Parker to back up what he said earlier? We had guys stand up this morning in a meeting and spoke with their heart. This is a very close group of players. That bond started in previous years but it's still strong despite a lot of the adversity to this point. I think that was significant today. How did Tyrone Carter and Anthony Madison play today? Ty had the big hit at the end of the game and Anthony Madison played fine. Troy (Polamalu) and Deshea (Townsend) both have concussions. I can't answer anything really at this point, except that they have one. Did Townsend injure his ankle? Yeah, but it was more of the concussion than the ankle. Is Carter okay? He looked okay coming off. His hair was flopping around. I don't know. I think he's okay. Were you upset with Joey Porter's promise? That's Joey. Joey does some talking. In his mind, he thinks we're going to win every time that we're on the field. I don't mind those statements. Joey's never offended the opponent. It's more of what he wants this football team to think like when they walk on the football field. As long as it's done within that context, that's Joey being Joey. Why is it that Parker will be contained and then break a long run? That's Willie Parker. Willie Parker's one of those guys, like a lot of the great backs in my mind, you hold him and you hold him, then you get that one play where he makes one guy miss. He's got that speed, other running backs you're looking at a 20- or 30-yard gain and he's a guy that takes them 60 or 70. There aren't many times that you'll see him get caught. He got caught a couple times today. Some of those were the angles. He runs really hard. He runs fast. The line did a good job today too. Did you call timeout so Parker could catch his breath? No, it wasn't for that reason. I wanted him in if he could catch his breath. We weren't sure. The play clock got down and they had a different personnel group. We didn't know who they were going to put in there. When we called timeout they put in who we thought they were going to put in there. Willie was able to go back in the game. Why didn't you bench Ike Taylor? The decision was made later in the week. I hadn't made any concrete decisions on Tuesday when I talked about lineup changes; that happened later in the week. I wanted to see how people looked, how they handled the challenge and made decisions accordingly. How did you get three fumbles today? It's amazing. Those things are harder to control than the giveaways that you have. You can control them. We've been played hard, hitting people hard. A couple balls were on the ground that we recovered. Murphy's Law will take over but you have to continue to put yourself in those positions. I would be concerned if we were not putting ourselves in those positions. It was so close and we were finally able to close out a game. There's a lot to be said for that. How good is Parker running inside? Jerome (Bettis) was a compliment to Willie. Just like Najeh (Davenport) is a compliment to him. The difference now is that in goal-line (situations) we still leave Willie on the field. Willie's is getting better because he sees plays. The more you run plays in this business, the more you'll have a feel for the play. Jerome had that luxury of experience. With a guy like Willie, he's a good inside runner, he's patient. He's not a 240-, 250-pound guy and that's where Najeh is a great compliment to him. Willie is one of those good young players and he'll get better with time. Was this Ben Roethlisberger's best game? I thought he played very well. It was good to see him accurately throwing. He's played pretty well throughout the year except for those one or two throws. I don't think he had one of those one- or two-throw games. Were you surprised that Parker is your first 200-yard rusher? No, because we'll switch it up with ball carriers. It's more indicative of the two long runs. That's probably why the numbers were the way they were. Were you disappointed with the defense? I'm disappointed with the yardage but I'm really happy with the win. We've been on the other side of that. I'd rather give up 500 yards of offense and win, than give up 98 yards and lose. What was your defensive secondary up against? Anthony Smith went in there when Troy went down. He went through the whole package and they're spreading it out. All of a sudden Deshea goes down and then we have Anthony Madison going in. We had some young guys out there. This will be valuable for them. They got some confidence for the future. Under the circumstances, I liked the look in their eyes on the sideline. What did you like about them? They have a veteran quarterback. They spread us out a couple times. They were dinking and dunking and hit a couple big plays. I liked the no-huddle element of it and how we were able to make some checks out there. It was one of those games where we would make the adjustments throughout the course of the drive. They were going no-huddle. We were on the sideline making adjustments. The way they were able to handle that will benefit them in the future because it can get real helter-skelter out there. You have to be able to keep your poise, understand what's being said but at the same time not being overwhelmed by it. I thought we did a good job of that. How much was today's game about pride? We played the game to win the game. Until someone says we're eliminated, we're going to keep playing. Why did you use Sean Morey on kickoffs? We had Najeh (on kickoffs). They kept kicking to Sean. He actually did a good job. A couple of those were short kicks. I thought he did a good job. Sean's back there to be a lead blocker but he got the ball a couple times. He got the ball over the 30-yard line. They were short kicks. It wasn't designed for him to get it. What did you think of the roughing the passer call on Aaron Smith? I would disagree with Bill (Carollo) on that. I understood what he said. We just had a misinterpretation of the rule. What did he say? The rule is that you can't drive your shoulder into a quarterback around his legs. This was a point of emphasis. When you're around his legs you can grab him because that pulls you in, but you can't drive your shoulder into the legs of the quarterback. Obviously he interpreted it different from what I saw. I didn't see the whole thing. You just know you can't drive your shoulder into the legs of a quarterback. We talked about it in training camp. If you're on the ground you have to try to grab the leg. You can grab it and get it into your shoulder pad, as long as you're not driving with a lot of force into it. I can't go much further with this. Is that a new rule? It's a rule, a point of emphasis. Did you open the floor at that meeting for the players to voice their opinions? Yes. Can you reveal what was said? Not really. That's an in-house thing. Your team seemed to be making big plays. Yeah, we made some plays. We were on the other side of that. We were on the plus-side of the turnover/takeaway. We didn't turn it over and we had three takeaways. That's a very telling stat. |
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