BB: What are you working on today?
Q: On draft day and when you put the draft board together, you mentioned
that there are players who might work well in one team's system better than
they would another and that could be a reason they drop lower in the draft.
Would Deion Branch go into that category?
BB: I don't know. You never know when a guy is going to go. We liked Deion.
We liked his skill set and his work ethic and a lot of the things that he
brought to the table. The way that draft came down was we moved up to get
[Daniel] Graham in the first round so it really would have been hard to move
up at all in the second round. So, we kind of had to sit there and wait it
out. You never know for sure where guys are going to go. Sometimes you can
put a group of guys together and maybe if you have five guys, you think
probably one of them will be there but you don't ever know which one.
Q: Was that a fingers crossed type of situation, because you started to
get closer and closer to him?
BB: Yes, it was like the 64th pick, somewhere in there.
Q: When they got to the 59th pick, were you getting antsy?
BB: Well, at that point, he was the highest player on our board. Yes,
definitely.
Q: Has he performed better than most 64th overall picks at wide receiver?
Chris Chambers was a good second round pick.
BB: Well, I don't know. It's only his third year. I think it is hard to
evaluate those guys that soon. Let's come back to that one in a couple of
years. Can we do that?
Q: I am not saying he is a Hall of Famer.
BB: He has done a good job. He has been a good player for us. He has a good
work ethic. He is versatile. He plays a number of different spots. He is
good on different types of plays. He is not just a one-route type of runner.
He can do a number of different things. He has been versatile mentally, too,
in terms of the learning and being able to carry out different assignments
as well as having the skill to run different routes and do different things.
He has been a good productive player for us. I am glad that we have him.
Q: You said before you can't do anything else as a wide receiver if you
can't catch the ball. I don't really recall him dropping many passes.
BB: Well, I think you are going to look at every receiver and find some with
everybody. It is just like every quarterback is going to throw an
interception. Every defensive player is going to miss a tackle. Every coach
is going to have a bad call. There is going to be that. I think overall his
hands are above average. They are good, and he catches the ball with his
hands. He is not a body catcher, so that leads to extra completions that
other guys wouldn't have when they have to extend for the ball. There are
some guys who just have trouble with that or they body it and then they let
the defender get close enough to the ball where they can break it up. He
does a good job of that. I think that his hands are good.
Q: What are the characteristics of Arizona's defense?
BB: I think there are a lot of similarities between their defense and the
Colts. They have a lot of speed on defense, a lot of up-field guys that can
run. They drafted [Darnell] Dockett. They have [Calvin] Pace. They have
[Kyle] Vanden Bosch. They traded for [Peppi] Zellner. [Bertrand] Berry, they
signed as a free agent. A lot of guys that they brought in this year, and to
a certain degree guys that were there, are fast, quick guys that can really
run. [Russell] Davis is a big guy in the middle. He is probably over 300
pounds and is a big, strong nose tackle. The other guy, I can't pronounce
his name, [Ross] Kolodziej, is another quick, disruptive player. Their
linebackers can run. Ray Thompson is a really fast guy. I know he is
injured, but he has a lot of speed. [LeVar] Woods is a really good, tough
competitive player that has a lot of quickness. They drafted [Karlos] Dansby
who is another 4.5 type of guy, a guy that can run. [James] Darling is a
very athletic guy. I would say that overall, their front seven, is very
athletic. They are quick. They pursue. They make a lot of chase plays. They
get a lot of turnovers and strip the ball out either on the quarterback or
on backs, coming from behind, that kind of thing. Their safeties are really
physical. They have a really physical group there that will hit you. [Duane]
Starks, they picked up [David] Macklin from Indianapolis, who is a good
cover corner. Ray [Renaldo] Hill had a really good year last year at corner
playing for Starks. Starks is back now, so Hill is their nickel corner. He
plays inside. Again, he is a really competitive guy. He is a good football
player. A couple of our coaches had him at Michigan State and know him.
[Robert] Tate, Coach [Dennis] Green had him at Minnesota and brought him in.
He is their fourth corner, and he plays in the dime. He is a pretty
experienced guy and another good inside player. I would say overall they
have a lot of team speed on defense. Their safeties are physical. They are
big hitters. Their nose is a big, physical guy, and probably the rest of
them will be noted for their speed, their quickness, their athleticism,
their ability to run and make plays and that carries over into the kicking
game. They have good players on special teams because those are the kinds of
linebackers they have. Those are the kinds of safeties they have. They have
guys like that on offense, guys like [Josh] Scobey that show up in the
kicking game as well as on offense and defense with that same type of speed,
athleticism and ability to play in space.
Q: When did Kevin Faulk rejoin the team?
BB: It was earlier in the week. I forget which day it was.
Q: He is listed as out on the injury report.
BB: Right. He is out.
Q: Is that a situation where he may be able to practice during the week
and you can make a determination by game time that he can help you, can he
play? Because he is listed out on the report, that doesn't exclude you from
playing does it?
BB: Well, I listed him as out because he is out.
Q: Okay, I remember a different situation a few years back where [Joe]
Andruzzi was listed as out with an injury but he made a dramatic improvement
and actually started in the game. I am just trying to find out the rules if
a player can be out, but can make improvement, whatever his situation is, he
can't play. Does it force him to be out?
BB: Well, nothing forces them to be out. A player's situation could always
improve. If it did, then we would change the report accordingly.
Q: So once you are listed as out, that is not the final word? You can be
upgraded to doubtful?
BB: If your situation improves, yes. That is the way I understand it.
Q: Now, you still have him listed as out for personal reasons. Has he
missed time because of his personal reasons that he is out? Is it because he
is still dealing with those personal reasons?
BB: Well, I think I have really said all that I can say about that. I don't
want to elaborate on somebody else's personal situation. The reasons that I
gave are the reasons he is listed as out. I don't think really I can comment
any further on that. It is a personal situation that he is involved in, and
I will leave that to him.
Q: Is he practicing?
BB: I will leave all of that. I think that is listed on the report.
Q: We've seen promos for the 60 Minutes special that say you are going to
reveal your secret weapon in this week's episode. Can you give us a little
insight on that?
BB: Are you kidding me? Well, I wish I knew myself. [There is] no secret
weapon that I am aware of. It sounds like a lot of hype to me. I can't
imagine 60 Minutes hyping a show, but maybe. There is no secret weapon that
I am aware of.
Q: What did you see in Rodney Harrison when you brought him in?
BB: Well, I followed Rodney through his whole career when he came out of
college, Western Illinois, went to the Chargers and was with the Chargers
that first year when they went to the Super Bowl—I think it was 1995, right?
And then I watched him play and had a lot of admiration for him as a player.
When I worked for the secondary in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999, you see other
teams in the secondary, you see other teams' receivers, see other teams
play, so I saw quite a bit of him on tape. I coached him out at the Pro Bowl
after the 1998 season. He was on that Pro Bowl team, so I had a little bit
of exposure to him all the way through. I think he is a good player. I think
he is a great competitor, and he is a tough guy. He has had a lot of
production in the league in all phases of the game—the running game, passing
game, even on special teams when he has been asked to do that. All of the
people that I have ever known that have been around him and that have worked
with him held him in very high esteem. So, when he was available, he was a
player that I was interested in investigating.
Q: How was his preparation for you that week at the Pro Bowl?
BB: Really good. A lot of guys go out to that and it is just, well, we had a
couple players who didn't wear their shoes to practice. They came out in
sandals. But a lot of guys didn't even bother to tie them. A lot of guys
weren't too interested in the game plan or any plays, they were just [doing
a] kind of pick-it-up-at-the-game type of thing. But he definitely wasn't
one of those. Rodney was very intense in terms of 'What are we doing? How
are we doing it? How do you want us to play this? What exactly do you want
us to do here?' And then, in practice, he was trying to get it right. I'm
not saying it was the most competitive practice I have ever been around, but
the offense is running plays, the defense is trying to cover them. Certain
things happen and you try to play the plays a little bit better, either by
technique or by position or whatever it was, and it was important to him.
You could tell that that game, even though it was to a degree a meaningless
game, it wasn't meaningless to him because he was competing in it. And I
think that is the way a lot of us look at any game. Whether it is a Pro
Bowl, whether it is preseason, whether it is a scrimmage, you are out there
competing, you want to do your best and it is important for you to do well.
I thought that, in that week, those qualities really came across, as I
expected they would from everything that I had heard about him.
Q: That was when you were the head coach of the AFC Pro Bowl team?
BB: That's right.
Q: He has said that the emphasis being placed on the 5-yard chuck rule is
a little unfair to defensive backs. Do you talk to them about that and tell
them to just play through it?
BB: No, not at all. It is whatever the rules are, we try to coach within
them. We teach our players that they need to understand the rules and abide
by them. And that is what it is. It is not for our team to like or dislike
the rule. It doesn't make any difference. That is immaterial. What we need
to do is understand it, and play within the boundaries of the rulebook. And
that is what we are about. We want to understand it, and we want to play and
do what is legal. What we can't do we don't want to do because we expect to
get penalized for it. Now they might miss a call here or there, but we don't
want to count on that. Is it okay to go out there and get a bunch of
penalties? No. Now, in the course of the game penalties happen. There are
some gray areas. There are some close calls. Some of those are going to be
called and some are not. I think if we are trying to play within the
framework of the rules, and sometimes some things happen that is a
violation, then you try to be a little more careful the next time. But, I
think you can live with those. There are other things that are just
clear-cut. To give your opponents extra opportunities, extra yardage, extra
field position, I don't really think that is good football. It is a lot to
overcome. You might get away with it every once in a while, but, in the long
run, you probably aren't going to.
Q: Has Vince Wilfork made a jump in the last few weeks in terms of
improvement?
BB: I think he has been pretty consistently moving in a good, positive
direction. Even from the spring and through training camp I think it has
been very steady and consistently positive. [He is] a little bit better
day-by-day. I haven't seen it as a big leapfrog thing, go up, level off, go
up, level off, or up and down. I have seen him as being pretty consistent
out there and getting better at the things that, as he does them, to react
quicker, to play with better technique. We started working him a little bit
at end a few weeks ago. There was some learning there, and I think that he
has come along with that pretty well—sub situations, playing on the nickel.
There has been a lot that has been added onto his plate, and I think that he
has handled it pretty well. He is continuing to get better at it, and he is
working hard at it.
Q: I know you show players tape of other players who play the same
position. Do you show Wilfork and Keith Traylor tape of Ted Washington from
last year and how he played it?
BB: Well, I think that through the course of the year we have seen a lot of
tape on last year's games. We played Jacksonville, Carolina and Philadelphia
in preseason. We played all of those teams the year before, so just in
preparing for the game and going back to look at last year's films, you
can't help but see that. Also, when we put in what we call our cut-ups, if
we put in a particular defense, [for example the] Cardinal, then when we
look at those Cardinal plays when we install it—'Here is how we run
cardinal. Here is what we do on cardinal'—then we see our guys doing that,
and that is what we teach off of. So, there is definitely an element of that
in the original installation when it goes in in the spring and in training
camp, and then in game preparation, if we played the team before, we make it
a point to look at our games just to see how they handled us in the schemes
that we are running.
Q: Do you like the Cardinals' uniforms?
BB: I like them.
Q: What are your top five uniforms?
BB: Well, we'll throw out the Patriots because you can't vote for your home
team. Top five uniforms? Well, I am kind of a traditionalist so I'm okay
with the Browns and I'm okay with the Cardinals, the old Giants. The Packers
and the Bears are very traditional. I kind of like the old Oilers' Carolina
blue look. |
