BB: Good morning. What are you working on?
Q: Could you just comment on André Tippett and the player he was and being
in the finals for the Hall of Fame?
BB: Congratulations to André for getting to the point that he is at. I never
had the opportunity to coach André. Being a defensive coach for the Giants for all of those years, we never really played against him, we just saw him
on film. He was a big force out there on the left side, the defensive end
left side. He was hard to block. A great pass rusher. Physical. Tough.
Dependable. Durable guy. It was always fun to watch him and some of the
other outside linebackers that were in the league at that time when most
teams were going to the 3-4, as we were, and that's what we played. So you
always watch some of those 3-4 teams, New England being one of them. André
was impressive and they had [Don] Blackmon on the other side. They had good
linebackers up here.
Q: There is a report out there that Rodney [Harrison] has a partially torn MCL and is going to miss the remainder of the playoffs. Is injured/reserve a
consideration at this point?
BB: I think we've given all the injury information we're giving out this
week. We'll have another report for you today.
Q: How tough is [Mike] Vrabel?
BB: He's pretty tough. Mike is a pretty tough kid, physically and mentally.
He's a hard-nosed football player. He's always been like that. College. Pittsburgh. Here. I think he's the old-school type of kid.
Q: Being this is the second time around, how has he done making the move
back inside?
BB: I think it was easier the second time around. At least he had been
through it all and experienced some of the harder plays that you get in
there, plays like bootlegs and play action and some of the misdirection runs
and stuff like that, they're a problem even if you're an experienced
linebacker, but when you're moving in there and you're getting the regular
stuff down and then you start getting the misdirection and play action
passes and bootlegs and stuff like that, that makes it harder. At least he's
been through it. He's experienced those plays and it comes back to him.
Still, it's a transition. I'm not saying that. I think having done it once
we've gotten some of that stuff out of the way.
Q: Do you ever envision Scott Pioli getting a job he can't refuse and could
you just talk about his value to the organization?
BB: I think you would have to ask Scott those questions. I wouldn't comment
on his personal and professional situation. I think that's his business. I
feel the same way about everybody else on our staff. Scott has done a great
job. I've been with Scott a long time, a few organizations. He works hard.
He's well-prepared. He does his job. Very team-oriented. Understands the big
picture. He's unselfish in what he does in his role for this team.
Q: How about the training staff and the job they've done this year just
getting guys ready to play?
BB: It's good. It's a good group. Jim [Whalen] has done a great job, and his
two assistants, Joe [Van Allen] and Dave [Granito], they're awesome. I think
everybody in the organization has a lot of respect for that group. They work
hard. They're very knowledgeable. They're up to date on the latest stuff. We
utilize a lot of different resources in terms of treating players. Each guy
kind of has his own area that he's probably, I don't want say specialty,
because they all do everything, but some guys really work in certain areas,
with certain players, or certain injuries, and that type of thing. I think
they do an awesome job. They get them back out there quick. They keep them
as healthy as they can. I think all of the players and coaches and the
people in the organization have an awful lot of respect for that group, the
hours that they put in and the knowledge that they have.
Q: Do the treatments increase at this time of year?
BB: I think you pretty much have the same procedure all the way through the
year. If the guy has an injury, you want him to get it treated whether it's
in September, October or January. Do you have more bumps and bruises in
January than you do in September? You quite possibly could, not necessarily,
but you certainly could. They keep pretty busy, though, unfortunately. We'd
like to see them work less, but they keep pretty busy.
Q: What problems do [Shaun] Phillips and [Shawne] Merriman present that
other outside linebackers don't?
BB: I think just about all outside linebackers in a 3-4 defense are pretty
good pass rushers, that's why they play the position, and those guys are.
Whether it's the Jets, Pittsburgh, any of the 3-4 teams you play. That's
part of the job description for that position, the outside linebacker, have
some pass rush ability out there, whether it's speed or power or a
combination of quickness or however they do it, then it's blocking those
individual pass rush techniques that those players have. Most all of them
have it or they don't play that position.
Q: How much of their sack totals are based on just the quality of their
defensive line and the fact that you have to take care of them besides
taking care of those two? It's hard to focus in on one guy.
BB: No, you definitely can't do that. They're a very good front seven, and
they bring them all, in different combinations. That creates a lot of
one-on-one situations. It's a good pass rushing team. They have 60-something
sacks, whatever it is. They're a good pass rushing team. Not only that, but
they get you in a lot of passing situations. They lead the league in
creating second-and-long and third-and-long for the offense. The more of
those long yardage situations there are, the harder it is to protect and the
easier it is for them to rush. They've had the offense in 75 third-and-10-pluses. That's a lot of long yardage situations. It's not like they just get
one team in long yardage. That's the way they play defense. They create a
lot of those situations. That helps the rush, too.
Q: How has [Laurence] Maroney done in blitz pickup this year?
BB: Good. It could always be better, but it's been good. He did a good job
of that in the preseason. I'm sure you remember some of those plays he had
in preseason, the pickups he had in the early games. He's strong. He has
good feet. He's quick. He's tough.
Q: Have teams tried to go one-on-one with Merriman at the start and it just
doesn't work out? What have you seen?
BB: I think we've seen a lot of different things. You have 16 games there,
so there are a lot of different offensive styles and matchups and so forth.
Just like our outside linebackers. You see tight ends over there, you don't
see them over there. You see backs chipping. You see the line slide. You see
play action protections. I think you're going to see pretty much everything
through the course of the year. As I said, one of the things that San Diego, Wade [Phillips], does a good job of is, they bring their linebackers in
different combinations. It's not always the same guy or the same two guys.
Sometimes it's the two outside guys. Sometimes it's the two inside guys. It
could be two up the strong side. It could be two up the weak side. It could
just be one guy. You don't really know for sure who's coming. Merriman and
Phillips come a lot, I'm not saying that. But they don't come all the time,
and if those are the only two guys you're trying to block, then you're going
to have a lot of problems with [Randall] Godfrey and [Donnie] Edwards inside
and some of the stunts that they run in there with them. You have to be able
to pick up all seven players. You just don't know which ones they are, and
that's part of the 3-4 defense. You can bring linebackers in different
combinations and still play your six and seven man coverages and create
different protection problems for the offense. That's what Wade does. They
do a good job of it.
Q: [Tully] Banta-Cain's sacks have come in bunches. Is that by game plan? He
said he's seeking consistency.
BB: Who isn't? We all are. No, I don't think it's a game plan thing.
Sometimes it just works out that way. But he's done a good job of rushing
the passer for us. He's done a good job playing the run. I think he's played
solidly here for most of the second half of the season. He's played on a
consistent basis out there. He's done a good job.
Q: Have you seen him take advantage of that more extended playing time and
more opportunities and improve?
BB: I think he's definitely improved. He's definitely improved. He's seen a
lot of different players out there like anybody would. He's seen some guys
that are real athletic, like [D'Brickashaw] Ferguson last week, or guys that
are real big like [Bryant] McKinney in Minnesota, and all the guys in
between. He's seen different combinations of blockers and people out there
and that experience has definitely helped him. He hasn't had a chance to
have a lot of extended playing time at that position until this year, either
at end or outside linebacker, however you want to look at it, and he has.
He's played solidly throughout the course of the year and that certainly has
improved.
Q: You used three first round picks on defensive linemen. When you look at
the way these guys have played this year, is this kind of what you
envisioned as a best case scenario?
BB: I think when you take a player, you want him to be productive in your
system. It just kind of worked out that way with those three guys. We
definitely thought they were good players, given where we took them. They
were all a couple of pretty high first round picks really, even Vince [Wilfork]. We certainly thought a lot of them to take them where we did. The
fact that they are playing together and complementing each other and work
well in their different roles and combinations out there, that's certainly
to our benefit. I can't sit here and tell you that's exactly the way we knew
it was going to go, because I think there's always a degree of development
with young players as to how they're going to work in your system. I think
that they do, they complement each other well and they work together well.
They bring a lot of leadership as well as good play. They bring a lot of
leadership to the football team and a lot of consistency, too.
Q: Do you think that sometimes there's a disconnect between the fans and
obviously people like yourself who are football experts...
BB: Between the fans and me?
Q: Yes.
BB: That's because it all goes through you, collectively.
[Laughter]
Q: When it comes to picks like that, because defensive linemen,
they're not attractive picks, but obviously they are very important in the
grand scheme of things.
BB: They sure are. If you want to play good defense, as I've said a million
times, it all starts up front. It's hard to be good on defense without good
defensive players. I think if you look at any team that's a good defensive
football team, they're going to have some good players in their front seven,
probably their defensive line is a good place to start. It's not taking
anything away from anybody else, because every position is important, every
player is important. Again, I can't worry too much about what everybody else
wants to do. I couldn't keep everybody happy even if I wanted to. I have to
do what I think is best for the football team and that's what my opinion
will always be. It doesn't mean it's right. It doesn't mean it's what
everybody else thinks, but it's what I feel like is best for the football
team.
Q: With the value that you guys put on game preparation, when you're looking
at a free agent or a college kid coming out, are there certain things that
you can look for and say, 'This kid is going to prepare for games the way we
want him to?'
BB: Sure. Sometimes you think you can pick up indicators like that. Again,
any time you look at a player you have to look at the entire player.
Everything that comes with him. His vertical jump. His strength. His
quickness. His intelligence. His work ethic. His experience. His
versatility. However many things there are, they all have some value or
maybe not. Maybe he doesn't have any value in a certain area, but maybe he
has compensating value in other areas. You look at the whole everything that
the player brings and then you try to, somehow or other, place a value on
that. I'm not saying that there's any perfect scientific way to do it. You
just look at the total picture and try to evaluate it. If you think that the
player can help your team, then he has some value to you. If you think,
'Well because of whatever reasons, either we have better players, or he's
just not going to be able to work well in this system,' for whatever those
reasons are, any of the things that I just mentioned, then he has less value
to you. I think you can have one thing, like all of us, there are things
that we do well and there are other things that we don't do as well. It's the
same thing with a player. He can have two or three weak points, and you know
that they're weak points, but you see the strengths that the player has and
you think that those are going to be able to override them, and he'll be
productive for you, then you try to work on the things that he needs work
on. You could say that about every player in the league.
Q: When a guy is preparing for a game, is that kind of equal parts –
intelligence and work ethic? Do both of those have to go into that for it to
work?
BB: I think there are a lot of things involved. Certainly those are two
important things. Instinctiveness and just being able to look at a situation
and then apply it to what you're going to do, that's important to. You can
look at a play and that could be a great play, but based on what you're
trying to do that play may not have a whole lot of relevance. You're just
not going to be in that situation. There are other times where you can see
plays and say, 'Well, this is exactly what we're going to be in on this
call, on this play. This is what I'm looking for.' Again, I think that's a
hard thing to quantify. I know players that can look at 10 times as much
film as another guy, and the guy that looks at one tenth might get more out
of it than somebody who looks at a lot more, if they're not really being
able to absorb that information, even though it's there. Again, I can't
quantify that, but I know what I'm talking about. I don't know if I'm
explaining it to you or not.
[Laughter]
Q: Is this team, this 2006 team in particular, good at preparing
and getting themselves ready to play a football game?
BB: I think as a team there are a lot of strong points there. I think it
could be better. I think overall the team does a pretty good job. Yes, I
think they do a pretty good job. They try to focus on the areas that we try
to identify for them. Sometimes, in all honesty, as coaches, starting with
me, we miss the mark at times too. Trying to put the target over here and
really that's really not where it should've been, in retrospect a lot of
times you find that out. Sometimes you find that out later on in the week. I
think generally speaking, they do a good job of trying to do what we want
them to do and play the way we want them to play. There have been some weeks
where I think it's been a lot better than others, and I've told them that. I
think the more we can get on the same page, and again, we use a lot of
feedback from them. They try to take the information that we give them and
apply it the best they can, and just continue to work together on that and
strengthen our preparations. That's part of the challenge. When you have a
lot of coaches and a lot of players all trying to get on the same page in a
short amount of time for a new opponent, a lot has come together. It doesn't
always come together perfectly even though you want it to.
Q: Do you feel like you can lean on the leaders of this team quite a bit to
set the level of expectation for that game preparation? Maybe some of your
captains would obviously be the ones where they prepare a certain way, so
everybody else feels like they have to as well?
BB: I think there's an element of that. Absolutely. I think we have a lot of
players on our team that are exemplary in their work ethic, their
preparation, their attention to detail and their determination to get it
right, whatever that is, whether it's a play, a technique, a call, an
adjustment or whatever it happens to be. I think that certainly has
carryover value to other people who see that and also when you're in a team
setting, when it's important to a lot of people for one thing to be right,
then that other guy who maybe it could go either way with, then he ends up
feeling that same way too, I'm going to join the party here and I'm going to
make sure I'm not the one that makes a mistake on this. I think there's
definitely an element of that and in place. The captains, I'd definitely put
them in that category, but I think we have a lot of other players on our
team that do a good job of that who aren't captains, but have the same type
of preparation. I'm sure I know the guys who you're talking about, the
captains and guys like that, I think there are other people on the team as
well.
Q: [LaDainian Tomlinson] has an uncanny knack of hitting that halfback pass.
It always seems like the receivers is 20 yards wide open. Is that like a
run/pass option?
BB: I guess every pass could be a run option. If you're going to run a
halfback pass, you can put a run option in there, where if the guy is
covered, you don't want to just throw it down there and tuck it away and go.
But I agree. It does look like most of the time when they call those, the
guy is standing there fair catching the ball. There's nobody near him. I was
looking at that today, and even going back to previous years, from plays
that we had from the '05 season, and the '04 season, because we opened with
them early in '05. It was the third game of the year. We had a lot of stuff
from '04 in preparation for that game. I'm with you. You look out there and
you see the guy standing 20 yards behind the defense just waving for the
ball waiting for it to come down. Again, I'm not taking anything away from Tomlinson as a thrower, but some of those plays have been extremely well
executed, or designed, or run at the exact right time. If the guy is covered
back there, Tomlinson can certainly pull the ball down and gain two or three
yards, not throw it away, or not throw it into a situation where it might be
a turnover.
Q: In terms of a team that relies on one player so much for touches, for
different aspects of their game, is it at all similar to the Rams when Marshall Faulk was there in terms of so many touches, so many different
ways?
BB: They're both great players. I wouldn't get away from that. I think the
offenses are quite a bit different, in all honesty. They're both great
players. They've both had a significant impact on their team. I understand
all of that, but I think the offenses, there's a huge difference between Mike Martz's offense and Cam Cameron's offense. They've both been
productive. They both have scored a lot of points. They both utilize the
backs. I'm not saying that. A lot of San Diego's offense is centered around
their tight end, in [Antonio] Gates. I would say if you look back at that St. Louis offense in particular, probably the tight end had the least amount
of production of any of the skill players on the field, just as an example.
Q: Does that make this a harder game plan to draw up than Super Bowl
XXXVI?
BB: Every game plan is hard. I think it's hard every week. I think every
team has good players, especially at this point. Everybody has good players.
They have good coaches. They have a good scheme. They're playing with a lot
of confidence. They're 14-2. I'm sure they think they're going to be 15-2. I
would too. They've won a lot of games. I'm sure they're confident. It's hard
to prepare for this one. It was hard to prepare for the Jets last week. It
was hard to prepare for the Rams. It's hard to prepare for everybody. All of
those teams are good.
Q: You've said before that you've never gone on the field not thinking
that your team was going to win.
BB: Right, that's a bad feeling, if you go out there like that. I
couldn't say that in the strike years, with the Giants, in '87. I think I
knew how that one was going to come out.
[Laughter]
Q: So, you're going to go out there feeling confident. Your
team has won a lot of games, there's no reason to feel that your team can't
win. But when you look at the things that your team has to do right to win
this game, does it seem like maybe a little bit of a longer laundry list
than usual?
BB: It's a longer list, it's harder because they're better. They're good.
Who has stopped San Diego offensively? They're averaging 31 points a game.
They've been over 40, I don't know how many times, four times. I don't know.
They've been in the high 30s probably half of their games. They're hard to
stop. And they don't turn the ball over. Defensively, they've sacked the
quarterback against everybody. They knock every quarterback down. I don't
think we're going to go out there and complete every single pass, hold them
to three yards rushing. It'd be great if it happens, but I think that's
totally unrealistic. They have a good football team. They do a lot of things
well. We'll have to play our best game. That's what it's going to take. I
could say that about a lot of games that we've played and prepared for. You
always feel like that.
Q: When you talk about mental toughness, how much of that is playing
through pain, playing through an injury and sort of knowing the difference
between them?
BB: I would define mental toughness as eliminating all distractions and
focusing on your job. That to me is what mental toughness is. Distractions
can come from everywhere. Bumps and bruises are part of them. All the other
things that happen are part of them, too. Being behind. Being in a tough
situation. Whatever. You could pull out a million of them. Eliminating all
of those distractions, eliminating all of the things that could keep you
from doing your job, that's what mental toughness is.
Q: Does that come in more to focus in playoff situations because the
pressure is up and that mental toughness has to be even more so in the
postseason?
BB: I think the level of competition is higher. Whether it's mental
toughness, physical toughness execution, turnovers, penalties, field
position. To me, everything is heightened just because you're playing
against the best team in the league this week. How can you think anything
else? How can you think that, 'Well if that happens, it's not that big of a
deal. If this happens, it's not that big of a deal?' You're playing against
the best team in the league, so you better do everything the best you can do
it to even give yourselves a chance to be competitive, especially after what
happened last year. We played this team. They outscored us 24-0 in the
second half. I think we all know we're going to have to coach a lot better
and play a lot better than we played against them last year just to even be
competitive.
Q: You have a much better defense than you did last year when you played
them. Your defense is vastly superior to what it was then.
BB: They're better. They're 14-2. Go back and read the articles that you
wrote before that game when they were 1-2 and tell me about how great they
were. You were the ones sitting here talking about, 'How can you say they're
any good? They're 1-2.' I can tell you that right now. I remember that press
conference. They come in here and light us up, take the ball up and down the
field, run it, pass it, shut us out in the second half and all of that. You
talk about how great we were or weren't then, they were 1-2. 1-2. It doesn't
mean anything anyway.
Q: Is there much carryover from what you saw last week from Brian Schottenheimer and what Cam does for San Diego?
BB: I think there's some. I think there's some. I think it's still two
totally different teams.
Q: Is there a lot of motioning the same way that the Jets do?
BB: They do some. They do some. They don't run the no huddle. They've run
it, I'm not saying they can't run it. They've run it, but they certainly
don't run it the way the Jets do, which is pretty much every play. The
motioning and shifting, there's a degree of that. I think the Jets do a lot
more of it than San Diego does, and they do it with the no-huddle. There are
some similarities, but I think there are a lot of differences, too. There
are
certainly a lot of differences in personnel and a lot of differences in the
type of game that I think San Diego wants to play. That's not taking
anything away from anybody. They might both come from the same tree, so to
speak, but I think that the specifics are significantly different. We
definitely aren't sitting in here saying, 'Okay, let's just Xerox off last
week's defensive game plan. We can do the same thing against San Diego that
we did against the Jets.' We're talking about a lot of different dynamics.
Q: But there are basic similarities?
BB: Look, there are some similarities, but there are a lot of
differences. A lot of differences.
Q: With Rodney out for this game, do you expect Artrell Hawkins' veteran
leadership to be even more important this weekend?
BB: Artrell has done a great job us all year. He missed a couple of games
earlier in the season, but he's done a great job for us all year. He's very
professional. He works hard. He communicates well. There is no player that
puts in any more time than he does in terms of preparation and studying
film. He's here early in the morning. He sometimes stays later than the
coaches do. He puts in a lot of time and he's on top of it and I think that
he and James Sanders have worked well together. They played together a lot
this year, probably more than any other two safeties, just because of all of
the circumstances that we've had back there. Both of them are very diligent
in, not only their personal preparation, but also in coordinating and
communicating through the secondary and making sure that everybody is on the
same page and we have the calls and the adjustments right and that will be
important in a game like this, just because San Diego gives a lot of
formation variations and change their personnel groups around and they have
some very unique and special players that are hard to match up against that
you have to kind of know where they are, because even if it's the same call,
when they start moving around, that kind of changes how you want to play it.
He's done a really good job for us. I'm glad we have him. |
