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HEAD COACH BILL COWHER It was a good win. I thought our
defense did a really good job setting the tone early with the first
three-and-out and with a little adversity off the interception. I thought they
did a good job. Our coverage team was excellent today. It was a good win. We
have a short week to get ready for Cleveland. You had some guys stepping up with
the injuries. We did. In the second half Ryan
Clark had a groin he really didn't play the whole second half. We had Anthony
(Smith) and Ty(rone Carter) out there and they did a very good job. Ced(rick)
Wilson had a high ankle sprain early in the game. Santonio (Holmes) played an
extended period of time, Nate Washington, Sean Morey. Those guys did a great
job. We did have some guys out but a lot of guys stepped in and did what they
had to do. You seemed to make things hard on
Bruce Gradkowski. He's a good football player. He's a
good quarterback. We did a few things to him. I thought it was important to put
some pressure on him and not let him sit back there. He scrambled a lot and made
some plays. We were fortunate to get the lead. The kick by Jeff (Reed) was real
big. I was right on the fringe with that kick. It was the two-minute warning. I
had too much time to think about it. I started to second guess. Jeff had a nice
swing on that. I thought that was a really big play because that put us up by 10
right now. Otherwise they would have gotten the ball with two minutes to go with
pretty good field position. What did you think about Tampa Bay
kicking a field goal at the end? I have so much respect for Jon
Gruden. I understand it. I was in that same position last week (against
Baltimore). We were in that position a number of times and you saw what my
decision was. Why did you say you understand
it? No one wants to be shutout in this
league. That's obviously why you do that. You kick a field goal because you
don't want to be shutout. I guess that's the thinking. It crossed my mind for a
very, very brief second last week but not to the extent of making that decision.
Did you talk to Gruden about
it? No, Jon Gruden is a good football
coach. In the grand scheme of things, does it really even
matter? Did the defensive backs use
different techniques against the fade route? That was a long time coming. Bryant
McFadden made a great play on it. The guy we really wanted to take away was Joey
Galloway. We didn't want him to get hit with some big passes. I know they made a
couple third-and-long completions at the end. He's the one big-play guy that
they have. We were aware of where he was on the field all day.
You stuck with Willie Parker. Was
that because you had a lead or because you were being patient with
him? A little of both. I don't think we
ran the ball particularly well today. Tampa has a good defense and they're very
sound. It seems like it's taking us too long to get on track. We've been there
two weeks in a row really. I'd even go back to Cleveland, almost three weeks in
a row since we really came out. With New Orleans we had a good first drive but
we've been very slow at getting started these last three games. We need to find
a way to get on track early. Will Cedrick Wilson be out for a
while? I don't know. It's a short week. I'm
not real optimistic. So you could play Cleveland without
your top two receivers? That's the way it may
look. Did you use Heath Miller at receiver
more because of the injuries? He gives you that option. We've been
down that road before when we lost Hines (Ward), and we have packages where he's
out there on third down. We may expand that a little bit, but we feel good about
Sean Morey. Walter Young's here. We're not going to get rid of everything. We'll
still be able to spread it out because we know that Ben (Roethlisberger) is
comfortable with it. How did Larry Foote
play? Let me just say, defensively, the
two scores we gave up last week, the two touchdowns were on short fields. We've
played pretty consistently defensively throughout. We've given up some plays and
have not gotten the turnovers. Today we had some takeaways and we hadn't been
getting takeaways. Larry came up big. He played a lot in place of Troy
(Polamalu). Larry Foote is a good football player. You see that week-in and
week-out. He's been a very consistent football player for this team.
How did Roethlisberger
play? I thought he was solid. On the first
interception that he threw, he didn't see (Derrick) Brooks run underneath it.
The play he makes to Willie Parker, buying time, he really came out and had a
big pass play. The throw he makes to Nate Washington, the throw he makes to
Heath for the touchdown are plays that you see him directing people. That's the
thing you have to give credit to. He's a great competitive guy and I thought he
played a very solid game. Did it benefit being able to play
some subs with the short week? We did at the end. You only have so
many guys (to sub), it's not like we dress a lot of people. We were able to rest
more guys defensively than offensively. We got Willie out of there for the
fourth quarter. We got some defensive guys out for the last four or five
minutes. Every little bit will help given the short week. Is it a challenge to play against
Cleveland? There's a challenge every week in
this business. If you look around the league it speaks for itself. Every week
you have to bring it. We understand it. We're just going to keep playing and see
what happens. Is it hard getting up for a short
week? No, you just keep playing. We're
going to work tomorrow. We'll practice tomorrow afternoon. We'll try to get our
normal week. We talked about it coming in. We've talked about it before. We have
a short period of time. We have to take care of business Thursday, get a long
weekend. We have three tough games to finish up with. We'll take this one game
at a time and let the chips fall where they may.
QUARTERBACK BEN ROETHLISBERGER You didn't get off to the start you
wanted (regarding the opening interception). It was one of those stupid plays – I
didn't even see him (Derrick Brooks) out there. As soon as I let go is when I first saw
him. I told him afterwards that I
wish he would have dropped it. It's
just one of those things. I told
Max (Starks) that he's too big, I can't see around him. It wasn't the way we wanted to start,
but we bounced back and fought hard.
Give them a lot of credit, and I'm proud of the way our guys
played. Nate Washington made a lot of plays
for you today. Nate stepped up big. He made a lot of plays. I know he got smacked pretty good on
one. When he really has to focus on
the ball, he catches it well. He's
stepping up and he's growing up every week, and he's going to continue to grow
and get better. Was it part of the game plan to get
the tight ends into the game? I don't know. They got open. Jerame (Tuman) got his first touchdown,
which is great. He did a good job
of peeling back. The next one was
kind of broken – I scrambled a little bit to the left, and Heath (Miller) peeled
back and made a good catch. Do you expect guys like the tight
ends and Nate Washington to step up when guys go down? That's what they do. They've done a great job of that all
year, and that's kind of the m.o. of this team. When guys go down, we've always had guys
who step up and play big. They did
a great job of that and filling in for the guys that were down. I would expect them to continue to do
that as long as we have guys down. You had a lot of success when you
were forced out of the pocket this week, but didn't last week. What was the
difference? Just being able to get outside. They didn't bring as many crazy blitzes
as Baltimore did, and I have to give my line a lot of credit. They stepped up big. I think they were really hurt by the way
things went last week, and I think they took it upon themselves to not let that
happen to their quarterback again.
They did a great job of that, and the backs did a good job of chipping in
and giving them time and then getting out, and the receivers were always getting
open. Being able to get outside is
a big facet of what we do, and I like to get out there and make some more things
happen. Is getting out of the pocket and
improvising still your first instinct? Not as much as it used to be. My first instinct is to sit in there for
a while, because I'm understanding better what guys are doing. It's just see what's going on, and get
out at the last minute.
You seemed to want to stick with the
running game, even though it wasn't producing early. That was our game plan coming in, to
re-establish who we are. We're so
good at running the ball at home – even though it wasn't necessarily working, we
still were getting two or three yards a pop. We just continued to grind it, got
behind our line, and opened holes for Willie (Parker) and Najeh
(Davenport). The offense finally complemented the
defense. The defense bailed out
your interception, then they get the ball back for you and you reward them with
a touchdown. It was good for the offense to
finally step up for our defense.
They've been picking us up all year, and picking us up when we're not
playing so well. We wish we could
have put a few more on the board.
They did a good job. The
defense got us the ball a lot tonight, a lot of turnovers. We need to capitalize more on them, but
we did a good job when we had to. Talk about the short week coming
up. I said that we might as well leave
our uniforms on. We're coming back
to practice tomorrow – that's the craziest thing. A couple of us are taking a road trip
tomorrow morning, up to Detroit, then we're coming back to hit practice. It's definitely going to be a short
week. Did you feel for the rookie
quarterback, and the way your defense treated him? Not at all. I have to go against them every
day. I talked to him afterwards,
and I told him the same way I told Charlie Frye last year, 'They're a good
defense. Keep your head up, you're
playing well.' He's doing a great
job and he'll continue to play well. How big a lift is it for the offense
when the defense plays that well? It helps a lot. As an offensive player, when the defense
is forcing turnovers it gives you a big boost to know that if you do make a
mistake your defense is going to pick you up. They always do a good job of that for
us. Do you feel any particular edge
going against Cleveland on Thursday night? |
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