Indianapolis Head Coach Tony Dungy
Opening Statement…
I told our team in the locker room that we are very fortunate to win. The one good thing I like about our team is that we do know how to win and we play hard for sixty minutes and we seem to find a way to win these games. I have to take my hat off to the New York Jets and their staff. They did a great job, they played to win. They did what you need to do to slow us down. It was one of those games that could have went either way. We have some veteran players that know how to make big plays in crunch time. We certainly couldn't do much of anything right. We did run the ball well; we thought we would run the ball well when we got the run looks. Defensively we defended them well at times, but not the whole way. We had a lot of penalties, we had the kick return, the onside kick; a lot of things that can cost you the game and will cost a game down the road if we are not careful. The big thing is we came away with a victory, we will learn from it and we will go from here.
On the last two drives in the 4th Quarter…
We had to go down twice to score to win it. We go down and give ourselves the lead, and then we're pretty fired on defense. We talked last night that we would kick off seven or eight times to Justin Miller and we had to keep him under control every time and we couldn't let one get out. We did, now we have to go back down and score again and we do. That's the kind of confidence we have in our offense, but we have to play for sixty minutes. We have to play better and not let it get to that situation.
On the quick lead changes…
When you have ten penalties that's absurd. Having some of the errors we had you just can't do that and then momentum swings. You can't afford to do that against a good team and this is a good team.
On if he considered going for a touchdown on 4th and Goal…
Not at all. We felt that at point we need it to take the lead there; we took the lead we have to come out to stop them. We had a chance two or three times to stop them. We didn't get them stopped. They were going against the wind, we knew kicking field goals going in that direction would be tough. We've got to get them stopped.
On the speed of the Jets' no huddle…
Yes, they have and we have some bad rules that I don't understand. We've been running no huddle a long time and we've been informed of the rules. I guess I've done a bad job of understanding what they are. So we will leave that at that. I don't know what the rules are. Everything I've been told is just not the case, we will figure it out and find out what we can do, what other teams can do what other teams can't do and it's just not a good day to talk about it.
On if he was surprised by the two scoring drives at the end of the game…
We expect that. We practice that all the time. We practice every Thursday, 1:30PM; no time outs so it didn't surprise anyone in our locker room. You shouldn't have to do it twice in a game, but it wasn't a surprise. But we can't rely on that.
On if he was surprised that the Jets went for a touchdown on 4th and Goal…
No, I'm not surprised at all, teams that play us do things like that: like the onside kick, going for it on fourth down, teams feel like they are going to need points against us. We just got a good play from Raheem Brock and from Rocky Boiman. I would have done the same thing against us.
On if he's happy with the win…
No. We talked last night about the things that we need to do and we didn't do many of them. We ran the ball well, we knew they would give us some run looks; we talked about being hard on defense and tackling and not giving up yardage after contact. We didn't do that. We didn't turn the ball over which helped us, but our special teams, we've been covering pretty well but today we have one kick with a breakdown somewhere- we're just not sharp. We have to be better and we will be.
On if they were lucky to win…
We are very fortunate and you know, I don't want to take anything away from our offense. They made the two drives when they had to and that's what you expect, we've got a veteran group and you wouldn't expect anything less. But to put ourselves in that situation wasn't good.
On injuries….
Ben Utecht was the only one that I was notified on, everyone else was ready to go back in. Ben had a back bruise.
On the progress of Joseph Addai…
Joseph is doing well. He's played well for us. He's doing all the things that you have to do, he's catching the ball, picking up the blitzes, pass protecting well, and he's a good runner. He had a couple of explosive plays today and ran the ball and made some good second and third down runs for us. Dominic ran well for us too. We did a lot of good things, we just negated them with some sloppy play.
On Justin Miller's kick return for a touchdown…
We had two people who had a chance to tackle him, our kicker, which you never want to see that happen, and Ryan LaCasse had a chance to tackle him, but Miller came through the wedge clean and you can't have that happen.
On the final play of the game…
Just got to make the tackle and get some guys down, you know they're going to keep throwing the ball around. You just want to keep it in front of you until they eventually come see you.
On the performance of WR Reggie Wayne…
It was a very, very difficult situation. I think the best time for Reggie has been when he's been on the field, and he practiced well on Thursday. Today he went out and made three or four big catches for us, so I'm really glad to see that, and he had some big plays for us today.
