BB: We're a little early here today,
but just trying to get past yesterday and get on to San Diego. Obviously we
have a lot of work to do. We put all of our energy and time into the Jets.
Now we are obviously behind on San Diego, so we'll try to put the full-court
press on them. They're a great football team. Ten in a row. Undefeated at
home. They've outscored their opponents by 200 points. You can go right down
the line. 60-something sacks, whatever it is. It looks like they can do it
all. They can score a lot of points, run the ball, stop the run, rush the
passer, return kickoffs. They don't look like they have a lot of weaknesses
in their game, which you wouldn't expect them to have. They're 14-2, the top
seed in the AFC. That's a big challenge for us. We've already started to try
to get ready for this one.
Q: How did your advance scouts work
on San Diego and Baltimore last week? Did you try to split them
half-and-half?
BB: No, we had to do it after the Jacksonville game, when we knew we were
in the playoffs, then we tried to split it up. There are a lot of different
possibilities with Denver and the Jets and these two teams, Indy, not this
week, but we could end up with them. There are a lot of different
possibilities there. We were spread kind of thin, but we just tried to catch
everybody.
Q: Last week, was there work done on both Baltimore and San Diego?
BB: Well, yeah, but we kind of prioritized San Diego just because of the seedings. If the game turned out differently on Saturday, if Indianapolis had lost on Saturday to Kansas City, then we couldn't have played San Diego
and then we would've just had our scouts and some other people really go to
work on…we would've flipped it around between Saturday night and this
morning as much as we could have. We're behind no matter how you do it.
Q: How complete a back is [LaDainian] Tomlinson?
BB: He's pretty good. He's the MVP. I don't know how you could be any
more complete than that. Run. Catch. Throw. Play blitz pickup. He can do it
all. He does it well. Their backs are real good. It's not just him either.
They have a good set of backs.
Q: What kind of growth have you seen from him since 2002 to last year and
even now?
BB: I don't know. He killed us last year.
Q: He had 217 in 2002. I'm just wondering if you've seen a development.
BB: He's looked pretty good to me, unfortunately, every time we've seen
him. We're usually looking at the back of his jersey. We haven't done very
well against him. He's killed a lot of people besides us, and he's killed
us. But like I said, I haven't seen all that many games on him this year,
but the ones I've seen, a team might keep him down for a few carries, but
it's just a matter of time before he breaks out, in one way or another, and
gets in the end zone.
Q: In terms of the central role that he plays in their offense, is there
any comparison at all between him, and say, Kevin Faulk of five years ago,
in terms of how central he is?
BB: Again, up until a few hours ago, the only team, really, I've watched
is the Jets. I've seen a couple of games on him. Starting to get into him. I
think Wednesday I'd able to say a lot more about what they do. I don't want
to just throw out a bunch of garbage here.
Q: Historically, what has been your experience, in terms of a young,
inexperienced quarterback in the playoffs, making his first start? I know
you went through it with Tom [Brady] and were successful.
BB: I think there are plenty of young quarterbacks that have done well.
[Ben] Roethlisberger won a Super Bowl last year. Brady won a Super Bowl.
[Philip] Rivers is a good quarterback. They have a good football team. It's
no one-man band out there. They have a lot of players that are good players.
Q: As a coaching staff, when you go in with a young quarterback who has
never started a playoff game though, do you discuss at all pulling back at
all or do you just say, run what you run?
BB: I'm sure every situation is different. I don't know how Marty [Schottenheimer] is approaching it. He's a great coach. He's had a
tremendous career. I'd like to have as many wins as he has, believe me. I'm
sure he'll do a great job with all of the things that he has to work with
out there.
Q: How did you approach that with Tom?
BB: We did what we thought was best for the football team each game. Each
game was different. The Oakland game was different from the Pittsburgh game.
The Pittsburgh game was different from the St. Louis game. It was a game
plan for us. We did what we thought was best for the football team, for the
entire team, not just the quarterback, but what we thought was best for the
team. Look, whoever you put out there, they have to play. It doesn't make
any difference what position they play, they have to play. And you have to
coach. You do what you think is best and go out there and try to execute it.
Q: You said a few hours ago, what time were you here today?
BB: I've been here for a couple of hours.
Q: Does Rodney [Harrison] have a chance to play in this game?
BB: We'll see. We're just day-to-day. Get past the Jet game, and now
we'll start working on next week. All I knew is what I told you last week,
so we'll see where we are.
Q: You said you have very little on San Diego, so you are kind of in a
cram session until Wednesday when the players come back?
BB: Yeah, we have two days as a staff to get things…it will go through
the whole week, it's not like Wednesday is the end of the week. We'll do
what we can do in the next couple of days to get the players ready to go.
The players are looking at them too, to get familiar with the Chargers.
We'll have something for them by Wednesday and we'll keep building that
through the week.
Q: Is there any relevancy at all to the game you guys play last year?
BB: Sure. We have to take a look at that. Hopefully we can be a little
more competitive than that. It was 24-0 in the second [half]. They were
pretty much running out the clock the whole second half. We don't want that
to happen again, that's for sure. It wasn't even really a competitive game.
Q: With regards to your team at this stage, how do you feel about the
level of play at this moment? Do you feel like you're playing your best?
BB: I think we're going to need to play our best against San Diego. I
think, based on the body of work, over a 16 game regular season schedule,
they're the best team in the AFC. We're going to have to play our best game
of the year against them. It doesn't make any difference what happened last
week or last month. The only thing that matters is what happens on Sunday.
So that's where we have to focus all of our energy and preparation and try
to put our best game out there on Sunday. That's what it's going to take and
that's what we need to do.
Q: How difficult is it to face a defense like they have with [Shawne] Merriman, and their whole defense, without knowing, at this point, that much
firsthand about them, other than last year?
BB: Well, we couldn't do much against them last year. They're a good
defensive football team. They're a good football team period. We have a lot
of work to do. I'm not minimizing that. So, to sit there and say that we
have a lot to do, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more.
Q: Does it help, in terms of your preparation, that Brian Schottenheimer was sort of raised professionally under Cam Cameron in San Diego and runs an
offense somewhat similar to what Cam does? Does that help in the preparation
in terms of any similarities?
BB: I wouldn't say a whole lot, no.
Q: In terms of how you will approach this week with the team, and
traveling wise, will you alter anything just based on the distance?
BB: We'll make our decisions on that here…that's another thing we have to
do and talk about today and try to get that settled.
Q: Is it a possible consideration to go out on Friday or maybe earlier on
Saturday?
BB: Sure. We'll do whatever we think is best for the football team. We'll
take into consideration everything. What arrangements are possible, I'm not
even sure. There are some logistics involved, so we'll see what the options
are and try to make the one that we feel is best for the situation and for
our team. Right. That's on the agenda today too.
Q: The touchdown to Kevin Faulk yesterday, how critical was it at that
stage to get a touchdown instead of a field goal, understanding that
would've made it a two score game either way?
BB: That's what you always want to do. I guess there could be a situation
where you would just hand the ball off and play for three to keep the clock
running. Against a team like the Jets, that's doing a lot of blitzing in
that situation, we ran the ball on them earlier in the game and some plays
against their sub and they kind of tightened that up and started running
some inside blitzes. I don't know. I guess you could run the ball and let 40
seconds run off the clock. If you pick it up, you pick it up. You kick the
field goal and give them a little bit less time, but we felt like we could
have a chance to execute our passing game down there, and obviously they
missed an assignment on Faulk, Tom saw him and made a good play.
Q: Is that an easy read for a quarterback to make?
BB: It all depends on the play and the defense. You have a progression to
take on the pattern. If they make a mistake where you're reading it, then it
is fairly easy. Sometimes they miss coverages and, for whatever reason,
you're not reading that particular part of the pattern and you don't see it.
This was a case where Kevin was an outlet receiver on the blitz, and he
didn't have pick up, so that was the guy that Tom was looking at and made a
good throw. Kevin broke it off. It's what you want to happen. I'm sure that
there should have been a guy on him, but he would've had to break a tackle
in that case, if they had peeled with him probably like they were supposed
to.
Q: Vince made a good play obviously on that lateral, but is there some
concern that a lot of your players didn't recognize it at first? Is it
something that you'll try to drive home this week?
BB: We always try to drive that home. We always try to drive that home.
That's one of those plays [where you say], 'Look get the ball and ask
questions later.' With the way the rule is now, the down by contact rule,
not that that was a down by contact play, but it's just another part of the
loose ball rule, just get the ball and ask questions later. The whistle
doesn't really mean anything anyway. Even if the whistle had blown, still if
it was a lateral, it's a lateral and you have to get on the ball. Yes, we
could do a better job on that. Coach it better, that's for sure.
Q: What did you see in Reche [Caldwell] that maybe San Diego or other
teams didn't?
BB: I don't know. You'd have to talk to San Diego about Reche. He came in
here last year and I thought he played well against us. We watched him. He's
had a lot of good plays in his career. He's been injured some, but not this
year. He's been very durable. He's a good receiver. He has good hands. He's
quick. He can get open and catch the ball. I thought he had an opportunity
to contribute here. Plus he's from Florida. It's like that's the criteria
now for our receiving group.
[Laughter]
Q: What will your scouts hand you today? How much of the work
is done?
BB: We have personnel write-ups on each player. We have several games
broken down, games that have been watched and put into our terminology and
nomenclatures, the formations, the defense, the blitz, down and distance and
all of that, so it can all be looked at and segmented. Then based on that,
there will be other things that we'll want to do a further study on. I'm
sure some of those will come up today and we'll keep digging into that as
the week goes on.
Q: How far back will you go? Would you take every game this year and
would you even go back further than that?
BB: Maybe, it's possible. I don't think necessarily every single play. I
don't think we're going to look at 2500 plays, although somebody will
probably watch them along the line. We'll pull some things out. If we feel
like we need to go back and look at a certain segment, say it's short
yardage. If we want to pull out all of the short yardage plays from the
entire season, we'll pull them out. Again, that's time-consuming, so it's
hard to say that with every single thing, to take every segment and break it
down and watch every play. You get to the point where you have so much
information. That's kind of the way it was with the Jets, just because we
had all of the information. It wasn't even going back and getting it. We had
it all. We had it from the first game, which was the second game of the
year. That took care of preseason. Then we played them in November and that
took care of September to November, and then we played them now, so that
gave us, the last however many games that was, between the second game and
this one. That was an extensive body of work. So when you get to that point,
you have to cut it down because you just have so many plays and so much
information. They can't do all of that. That's what they did in the season.
They can't do all of that in one game, so you have to figure out what you
want to address and what you are aware of, that you just have to kind of let
it ride.
Q: Is that a big part of today, figuring out what's relevant to your
players and figuring out what you have to show them?
BB: Yes, I think that's always important, is to try to get your
players…because again, every team in this league has a pretty good scheme.
If you look at enough games, you're going to see enough different things. If
you start getting the players ready for something that they end up not doing
then, in a way, that's counterproductive because you're sitting here
[saying], 'Watch out for this. Watch out for that,' and the fact is, they're
not going to do it against you because you didn't play like those teams
played that they ran those plays against. You want to try to figure out…you
can never figure it out, but you want to try to get somewhere into an area
of, 'Look, this is what we have to defend. This is what we have to take care
of. This is how we want to attack them,' and try to boil that down so that
when the game actually comes, you're somewhere in that vicinity. The more of
that other stuff that you bring in that really isn't going to be part of the
game, it can end up hurting you more than it helps you.
Q: Do you focus on their offense against primarily 3-4 defenses or will
you look at them against 4-3s?
BB: Again, I think there's relevance in both. Some 3-4s play a lot
differently than ours. Some 4-3s actually play similar to our 3-4. It's more
about spacing and the style of play. There are a lot of plays where a 3-4 is
not on the field, third down, goal line, short yardage, situations like
that. I doubt that we'd be in a 3-4 on third down. A team could be a 3-4
team, it doesn't really make any difference. When you're looking at third
down, you're looking at how they're getting played on third down and how you
want to play them. In other words, I think there's relevance in every game.
There are very few games that I can think of that I've looked at and said,
'Well, that was a waste of time.' Maybe you're not getting a good look at
one situation, but you're getting a good look at another down and distance
situation or another personnel matchup or whatever.
Q: You were 100 percent focused on the Jets game. The minute it ends,
does it take a while to shift and look ahead to San Diego? Is it difficult
to do at times?
BB: I don't think it's difficult. That's what it is. It's the National
Football League. When Indianapolis won Saturday, we knew if we won that our
next game would be against San Diego. So we knew that as of Saturday night.
We had done some preparation work on both teams. I told the people that are
involved in that, obviously, to put the Baltimore stuff on the back burner
and get out the San Diego stuff, and there were a few things that we
furthered our analysis on with that. Then when the game was over, I took the
San Diego stuff that we had and put that into a place where I could start to
get familiar with it and look at it. That process started last night. Forget
about the Jets. It doesn't mean anything right now. That game is in the
books. It's done. It's time to move on, and believe me, we know what kind of
challenge we have ahead of us. There's no point in looking back at that,
other than to correct a few things, and to make sure that some of the things
that we didn't do well in that game don't get repeated in the next game and
cost us again. I'm not saying we can't learn anything from the game, but as
far as sitting there spending a lot of time on it, I just think the time
could be better spent getting familiar with the team that has the best
record in the league right now. That's where we're heading. |
