BB: After watching the tape I don't have a whole lot to add from what we saw
last night. It was not a very good performance. They beat us in every phase
of the game, just like it looked in person. We have a lot of work to do.
We've already watched the tape as a team and started to try to pick up the
pieces and get things going back in a more positive direction than they were
last night. I guess that's about it.
Q: Where do you start?
BB: I think a lot of the fundamental areas in all three phases. We have to
show the ability to do the fundamental things right, distantly before
anything else can really happen. Until we get some of those things
straightened out, a lot of the other stuff won't even matter. It starts with
the fundamentals and all the basics on offense, defense and special teams.
We didn't do a very good job with those last night at all.
Q: Can you talk about Keith Traylor and Vince Wilfork? It looked like
they had trouble holding the middle of the line. Would you agree with that
assessment, and if so is that surprising?
BB: Actually, I saw it just the opposite. I thought of all our problems, and
we had a lot of them and I'm not saying that anybody played well, but I
thought of all the things we had problems with that was probably the least
of them, that position on defense. We have a lot of work to do everywhere,
but I thought there were some positive signs there.
Q: Where did you see the breakdowns in the run defense?
BB: Everywhere. It wasn't like they had a lot of long runs. It was just
every time they handed the ball off they got four or five yards, and you
can't stop anybody like that. You have to stuff a few of those running plays
to create some long yardage situations. We could never get them in third
down. It wasn't like they had a lot of third-down conversions in the first
half. We could never get them in third down. So, that's a lot of consistency
in the running game, and we have problems at a lot of different positions
and we missed some tackles. We just didn't key and read things well, and
they were physical. Even when it looked like at times we had the runners,
they punched through for positive yardage, so they did everything a lot
better than we did.
Q: How would you grade Matt Light and Tom Ashworth on their performances
for the first time on the field?
BB: I don't think this was an "A" performance by anybody (including)
players, coaches or anybody that participated in the game. I think every
player probably had a few plays that were okay and they had a few that
weren't very good. I think you could probably pretty much put every player
into that category. It doesn't take a lot of mistakes to mess up a play. It
only takes a couple, and we seemed like we had them on just about every play
throughout the game. I'm not saying it was all bad, but collectively it was
all bad. Therefore, it was.
Q: Will you make the team watch this game film more than you would
normally make them watch an exhibition film?
BB: No. We've already seen it. Right now we're trying to get on a little bit
of a regular-season schedule. We have been giving the players the day after
the preseason games off, and now with this one we're going to come in and
watch the film like we do during the season and treat this like a regular
Monday. (We will) give them tomorrow off and then start our Tuesday
preparations for Carolina like a regular Wednesday and kind of let them get
into that routine because we won't be able to do that the following week
because it's a short week with Jacksonville. It won't be exactly a
regular-season week for us, but that's kind of the routine. We've seen it
(the game film). We've gone through everything. We've made the corrections.
We talked about it, and now we need to do something about it.
Q: Any update on Guss Scott?
BB: I don't know for sure now, so I don't want to speculate on it. When we
have something definite we will let you know.
Q: Mentally and emotionally was last night's game something this team was
not ready for?
BB: Mentally, we had plenty of mental mistakes. That was obvious from
watching the game. There were a lot of things we didn't do right.
(Cincinnati) scored, stopped us, scored. There was some adversity, and
certainly the fans, the crowd, was in it and they were playing emotionally.
Collectively, we didn't do much to change that course, so somewhere along
the line you have to stun the tide. You have to turn that into at least a
stalemate. You have to start to put it in a positive direction before you
can start attacking it, and we were never really able to do that. I would
say there were elements of all those things. I don't think it was any one
thing, but I think all of them collectively, that's what you got. It was
28-3 at the half. Mental mistakes, physical mistakes, breakdowns, missed
reads, poor execution, not really being able to bounce back collectively as
a team from some adversity early in the game. That's what it is.
Q: Besides Guss Scott did you come out clean on the injury front?
BB: For the most part, nothing really serious. We took a few nicks here and
there, but we'll see how they are when we start practicing on Tuesday. I
don't think anything really major to report at this point.
Q: How do you think Rosevelt Colvin held up from the work he got last
night?
BB: I think that's what he needed to do was to get out there and play. As I
said during the week, we kind of broke the ice against Philadelphia in terms
of Rosey getting out there and just playing and experiencing the game
conditions rather than all the practice and preparation and all that. He got
quite a bit of time last night, so I think that's what he needed. He's got a
ways to go, but he's continuing to make good progress, and I think that was
a really positive step for him last night.
Q: Did you get a taste of being the defending Super Bowl champions last
night, where Cincinnati may have treated the game a little differently than
your players?
BB: We expect every one of our opponents to play their best. That's what we
expect every week. That's what we prepare for. We never expect anything less
than that because then I think you're setting a low expectation for your
opponent, and I never think that's a good idea. We expect them to play well.
We know they are a good football team. They have a lot of talented players.
They're physical. They're aggressive. They're well-coached. That's what we
expected, and that's what we got. They played to it, and we didn't. I'm not
really concerned about anybody's record last year or anything else. I think
that's not really what it's about. It's about being prepared for your
opponents, their best effort and their best plays and their best execution,
and you being on yours so that you can combat it. They were on their game,
and we weren't on ours.
Q: Heading into the Carolina game, does this game make it harder to
divide playing time among veterans and rookies?
BB: I don't know. You have the same four games every year, and you just have
to decide at each game, given where your team is and given how things are
position by position, how you feel like the playing time can best be
allocated. Even then it doesn't always work out that way. It depends on how
the game goes, sometimes and circumstances beyond your control. Whatever the
opportunities are, however many plays we have and whatever areas of the game
they come in, we'll just try to balance all the different things of scheme,
looking at new players, getting other players playing time and getting them
ready to play and prepared for the season, and trying to create different
matchups or maybe trying to see ones that we think would help us more in the
evaluation to try to set it up a certain way based on who we think they may
have out there or who we do see they have out there. I think all of that is
kind of intertwined. Again, that's no different than any other year. Each
situation is different, but that is kind of how we try to approach it and do
what we think is best for the team at that particular point, that game,
whether it's the first one or the third one or the fourth one or whatever it
is. |
