Opening Statement:
"I liked the way our team played yesterday. We did some very good things. Offensively, when you score eight out of nine drives you've got to feel pretty good about what you accomplished. With that being said, four of those drives started on the plus side of the 50 and three of those four drives we came away with field goals. That's something we have to be much better at. We had a drive that started on the 41, 43, 24, 31, and the seven-yard line and we only scored one touchdown in those short field situations. That's something that we definitely have to address. Defensively, I like the way we made adjustments. We did not like the way we started. Not the type of stuff you want to put out on tape, but I thought we did a good job making adjustments. I've got an update on the injury report. This morning CB Brent Grimes had a MRI and it indicated he has an Achilles tendon injury and he will be placed on the reserve/injured list this afternoon."
On how the offense made it look easy on the field:
"It wasn't easy. The guys went out and executed extremely well. That was a very good front seven that we faced yesterday indicated by the tough sledding we had in the run game. I think we had a very good plan on how we were going to attack the defense and I think we executed it very well. I liked the way we spread the ball around. I think Julio had six catches, Roddy had six catches, Tony had five catches so we were able to distribute the ball. By no means was it easy. That's a long two hours and fifty two minutes that game went yesterday."
On why the running game wasn't successful:
"The front seven of that team and the scheme that they run they are very good at it in terms of stopping the run. We felt like the way that the play calling went we would be able to throw the football. We've got to be able to run it more effectively and more efficiently than we did yesterday. We have to stay on our blocks. We missed some blocks and we missed some cuts. It was a group effort and that's something we want to address here in the next couple days. We want to be able to run the ball effectively. Going into the game the plan we had this week it was not the main thing we wanted to get accomplished."
On how losing Brent Grimes hurts the team:
"It obviously hurts our depth any time you lose a player of that caliber. Brent's made a number of plays since we've been here. He's been a cornerstone at the corner position, both left and right. It's the next man up mentality and that's how you have to approach it. We've got a number of guys that have had playing time on our roster right now, and it's something as the coaching staff put together what we feel like is the best plan in terms of how we'll configure our nickel package. I think that's probably the biggest thing we have to do is figure how we want to configure who's going to be playing in our nickel package."
On missing Grimes against Denver:
"I got home and got to watch the second half of that ball game. It didn't look like their quarterback has missed a whole lot of time. It looked like he had played last week in a regular season game. He was very efficient. He had a great command of it. I'm very familiar with Peyton Manning with my time in Jacksonville. Mike Nolan's time in Baltimore. We'll have our hands full. He'll get his yellow jacket the first time he's eligible. We're looking forward going through this game plan week and preparing. I know our guys will be and it's going to be a fun night next Monday night."
On working against the no huddle in practice:
"We get a lot of practice in the offseason working against ourselves. Peyton Manning has probably done it better than anybody in the history of the NFL for years and years with the Indianapolis Colts. He would make all of the calls there at the line of scrimmage. We have that in our repertoire as well. As we put our game plan together we, as a coaching staff, want to put our offensive thoughts together. It could be very possible that we run some no huddle and again we may go out and do what we did the majority of this game and call it. I think we operated at a very good tempo in both of those situations in the game yesterday."
On penalties:
"Very encouraging because you guys know over the last four weeks I've been talking about ten and eleven penalties and where is this coming from. We have been one of the least penalized teams in the National Football League since we've been here. Really thought it was a clean game by our football team. They were very focused. We had two penalties. One on offense, an illegal procedure penalty, and a vice situation where we held on a special teams play. Those were the two penalties that were called in the ball game. Much better than what we had done in the preseason."
On CB Chris Owens be the guy replacing Grimes:
"Chris has played at the nickel position. Again, it's something we'll work over the next couple of days. We've got lots of flexibility in terms of our secondary. Through the offseason as we're putting together our opening day roster we play guys at right corner, at left corner, cross trained them because there are match situations as the season goes on that we'll have to distribute our defensive backs in that way. Chris is definitely a guy that's got some experience and some playing time."
On being glad about having Asante:
"Injuries are part of this game, unfortunately. We felt like we were adding a corner that gave us three number one corners. Unfortunately, after the first game we 've had an injury and we have to adjust and we will adjust. The guys that get the opportunity I know they're looking forward to it and they'll go out there and compete."
On Grimes being out for the year:
"Yes. The injury will require surgery and he'll be done for the entire season. The recovery time is beyond the end of the season."
On how LB Akeem Dent played:
"Somebody asked me that earlier this morning in a situation. We were in our sub defense all but eleven plays. Akeem Dent is our base linebacker. He's our first and second down linebacker. He played eleven snaps in the ball game yesterday. I thought he did a very nice job. Sometimes if you just read the stat sheet it can be very deceiving. We ran our nickel package where we had three corners and two linebackers the majority of the ball game."
On getting turnovers in the second half:
"We made some adjustments schematically, but we actually came out and performed much better in terms of our intensity. We tackled better. We had the line of scrimmage won for the most part in the second half. I think there were seven minus yardage plays in the run game after the explosive run on the first play of the second half. I think we really calmed down. I think one of the big turning points was the sack fumble by DE John Abraham which gave us the third turnover. It was nice to get the two turnovers and give the field position to our offense. Turnovers are the number one indicator whether you're winning out. That's turnover ratio. I say it all the time it's interactive. It involves both the offense and the defense. We were very clean in terms of the offense. We did a nice job there in the second half. There was a string there in the third quarter where we created those three turnovers and really kind of blew the game open."
On RB Jacquizz Rodgers:
"Going into the season we had a concern about our kickoff and punt returner. Jacquizz has kind of showed we've got a guy that can do it and do it very effectively. We had some very nice blocking up front. The 77 yarder gave us great field position and was a great run. Jacquizz has got great vision and I think he's going to be a great returner when he gets his opportunities."
