Colts.com take on Cowboy loss
from colts.com:
THE POLIAN CORNER
By staff - Colts.com
Q: A 21-14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. It has been two full years – since October of 2004 – since the Colts lost a regular-season game with playoff implications. A disappointing loss, but it really has been a remarkable run . . .
A: It’s very hard to do, but in 30 years in the National Football League, I’ve always believed that good teams fall into the following categories. They usually play 8-to-9 really good games. Then, they play between 3-and-4 mediocre games. Then, they play between 2-and-3 poor games. If the poor game happens to be against a reasonably good team, the likelihood is you’re going to lose. Some years, there is an imbalance in the conferences and you will have good teams who play poor gamrs against awful teams and they win, but we happened to play our poorest game offensively – and because of the fourth quarter, a very mediocre game defensively – against a good team. As a result, we ended up on the losing side. That’s all there is to it. We’ve got to get back to work and not play that kind of a game again.
Q: Anything particularly concerning jump out at you from the Dallas game?
A: I think everything we did Sunday can be fixed. We did a lot of things that are very out of character. We dropped the ball seven times by my count. We don’t normally drop seven balls in three games. That’s one thing. We also had some mental errors in terms of pass protection. We also had lots of physical breakdowns in pass protection – lots by our standards. The quarterback (Peyton Manning) got hit a fair amount, which shouldn’t happen. It especially shouldn’t happen in a situation where you can pretty much predict where the rushers are going to come from. Offensively, it was fits and starts: good drives, poor drives, drops, penalties – things of that nature. Defensively, we had three outstanding quarters – maybe the best we played all year. Then, an awful fourth quarter. The turning point of the game was in the fourth quarter when we had an interception in the end zone, then had a penalty take it away. Instead of the score being 14-7 and us having the ball with about eight minutes to go in the game and probably getting at least a field goal out of that, they end up tying the score and getting all the momentum on their side in their ballpark. So, that’s an error that should never happen, especially with the technique required of the player at the time. It’s just a poor game. Not good at all by our standards, and we’ve got to get better at it. But I will say this: as we dissect the game – and it will be dissected a thousand different ways by a thousand different pundits – I’ll give you NFL 301. There are only two statistics that count in the National Football League, and they are as follows: No. 1, yards per pass attempt; and No. 2, turnover margin. Rushing yards don’t count. Sorry to tell all the stat mavens out there, but the team that rushes the most doesn’t always win. And if it does, it’s by accident. It’s not a meaningful statistic. What counts are yards per pass attempt – and you take sacks into consideration on that – and turnover margin. We lost both of those battles on Sunday. Ergo, we lost the game.
Q: The fumbles and turnovers in the last two weeks – really uncharacteristic for the Colts . . .
A: You can’t have them. We’ve got to get that straightened out and that’s usually just a matter of concentration or technique. The one interception was not the quarterback’s fault. The other was probably a throw he’d like back. You’re going to have those every now and then, but on the road against a good team, it’s difficult to overcome those kinds of things.
Q: And with Cowboys Head Coach Bill Parcells on the other sideline, you know exactly what kind of game you’re going to get . . .
A: That’s why the called-back interception was so important. It occurred about the eight-minute mark of the fourth quarter. If we take the ball down and take three-and-a-half minutes off the clock – and we had it around our 35 – they’re going to be down 17-7 or 21-7 with five minutes to go in the game. That’s a pretty long road to hoe for them. That, to me, was the pivotal play in the game. There are always three or four plays that determine the outcome and to me, that was the pivotal play, but it’s something you can correct. So, you move on and we do, and here we go next week with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Q: A day later, what’s your impression of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo?
A: I think he’s good. When all of the so-called experts were harping on, ‘You’ve got to stop the run,’ I said, ‘I don’t like the match-ups in the secondary in the passing game with Tony Romo, who can escape the pocket and make plays down the field and with our old nemesis (wide receiver) Terry Glenn.’ Everybody’s talking about the other receiver. Terry Glenn’s the guy that week in and week out gets the job done. They held Terry Glenn out of the Arizona game so he would be ready for us. Bill Parcells is Bill Parcells because he does those kinds of things. That was the match-up we were worried about and it turned out to be a big factor. Now, we didn’t play as well as we should have in the secondary, but it really only came in the fourth quarter. That’s correctable. We can get those things straightened out.
Q: Why wouldn’t the Colts have run on 3rd-and-2 from the Cowboys 8 late in the game?
A: No. 1, they were in a defense where they had those linebackers up on the line of scrimmage playing the run. If you had (former Steelers running back) Jerome Bettis, for example, it might be something you would try, but (Colts rookie running back) Joseph Addai’s 215 pounds, not 260 pounds. Do we need perhaps – in the future – a short-yardage goal-line back? Sure, we could use one, but if you don’t have that guy, then you take what the defense dictates to you, which is to throw the ball. On fourth down, we think there was a penalty in the end zone that should have extended the drive. We’ll see what the officiating department says, but I wouldn’t second-guess the play calls.
Q: Why wouldn’t have the Colts thrown the ball into the flat – or thrown short – in the same situation?
A: That’s what we tried to do on the third-down play. On the third-down play, we went for (Colts wide receiver) Marvin (Harrison) on a go route and they covered it, which will happen from time to time. On fourth down, they took (Colts wide receiver) Reggie (Wayne) away. He (Manning) had (tight end) Dallas (Clark) in the end zone. We think there was a penalty there. It wasn’t called, and so the ball went incomplete, well over Dallas’ head. Had Dallas not been contacted and prevented from going to the ball, it wouldn’t have looked as bad as it did on television. (Former Buffalo Bills and Hall of Fame Head Coach) Marv Levy, my mentor in this game, used to say, ‘Whatever you did, if it didn’t work out, you should have done the other thing.’ I wouldn’t second-guess the play-calling. I would like to have – and I’ve said this before – a big blaster who could make two yards in that situation. I think that’s the easiest way to play your game – is to be able to blast in the red zone. That’s the easiest way to be a high-scoring team. But we just haven’t had the opportunity to draft a guy like that. We haven’t found him – let me put it that way. We’ve looked hard every year, but we haven’t found him.
Q: And running back Marion Barber of Dallas fits that kind of mold?
A: He probably does, but I’m thinking more of the Bus (Bettis) or somebody like that. (Larry) Kinnebrew, in the old days in Buffalo – he was an automatic first down. (Former Kansas City Chiefs running back) Christian Okoye, (current Chiefs running back) Larry Johnson – some guy like that, 250 pounds who just goes in there and blasts people out of the way. If you have that fellow, your red zone offense becomes a lot better.
Q: Is Addai progressing as you want him to? And how did he look Sunday?
A: He is progressing exactly as we want him to and he looked great Sunday. He made a miraculous run where he made a guy miss and turned a five-yard loss into a 12-yard gain. He blocked tremendously Sunday against a team that’s pretty tough to block. He stopped (Dallas outside linebacker) DeMarcus Ware – who, by the way, is a great rusher – in his tracks. He’s just getting better and better by the day. We’re really pleased with him. He had 38 plays Sunday and (starting running back) Dominic (Rhodes) had 27, which give or take a few is probably the right ratio.
Q: The Colts only lost Sunday by seven points despite committing four turnovers and playing far from their ideal game. What does that say about the team and is it a good sign?
A: Don Shula, probably the greatest coach of all-time, told me many, many years ago that every time you go out there to take something positive away. You can’t ever wallow around in the loss and you certainly don’t want to wallow around in the curbstone psychoanalysis and finger-pointing that goes on in the electronic media. The positive is that we had four turnovers and we’re in the game and have a chance to probably salt the game away very late in the fourth quarter, so that’s a testament to our defense that played better against the run – against a very good running team that was determined to run – than they have played all year. (Middle linebacker) Rob Morris really had a great ballgame. He has had two great ballgames in (middle linebacker) Gary (Brackett)’s absence. That is a positive. You take that away and you feel good about it.
Q: What happened on the holding penalty against (cornerback) Jason David that nullified the interception?
A: Jason has outside position there. He knows that (safety) Antoine (Bethea)’s inside him. All he has to do is funnel him to the inside. What he did was grab the jersey – albeit probably inadvertently. But a jersey grab is a jersey grab and it’s a foul. I led the charge to have it made a foul on the NFL Competition Committee. What I said was, ‘If you grab a jersey in the school yard in the eighth grade, it’s a foul. Why isn’t it a foul in the National Football League?’ The answer is it is. You shouldn’t grab jerseys. We teach not to do it. He did and he got a flag on it and it changed the game dramatically. But you learn from it and you move on. There were years in the mid-1990s and even into the early part of this century when the officiating department said, ‘Well, it’s OK to grab a jersey and we’ll decide how great the restriction is.’ As a result, guys were going out there with longshoreman’s hooks and grabbing receivers and you heard, ‘No, no, there isn’t any restriction there.’ Restriction meant you yank him off of his feet. That’s no way to play the game.
Q: When a quarterback spikes the ball to stop the clock, why isn’t that called intentional grounding?
A: There is an exception in the rule for that. If you spike the ball in attempt to kill the clock and you throw it immediately to the ground after taking the snap, the official does not rule it intentional grounding, nor will he rule it illegal forward pass if it touches an ineligible receiver as long as you spike it first. That’s the exception and that’s why we do it.
Q: And if it hits a lineman on the way down?
A: They generally let it go. They presume that if you spike, you’re spiking for the reason of stopping the clock.
Q: Near the end of the game, on the play on which the Colts were called for a 15-yard face mask penalty, it appeared the Dallas player also grabbed the Colts player’s facemask. Why was that not offsetting penalties?
A: In my opinion, it was two facemasks. It probably should have been offsetting penalties. We’ll see what the officiating department has to say. Obviously, the officials on the field have the final say and they called it the way they did. By the way, it was a good crew Sunday. They did a pretty darned good job. Our last play of the game we thought was a foul, but it doesn’t detract from the job they did in a tough ballgame.
Q: What was your opinion on the timing when Bill Parcells challenged Colts wide receiver Marvin Harrison’s catch in the fourth quarter?
A: I questioned it at the ballgame because I didn’t see Bill down there. I presumed we had thrown a touchdown pass (from Manning to Colts tight end Ben Utecht) to tie the game. Some of the folks I was sitting with said, ‘No, he threw the flag in time.’ I looked at the tape Monday and while you can’t see him (Parcells), I can see the official stopping the clock on his side of the field just before the ball was snapped. One of our staff people said he thought that Bill was waiting for the clock to run all the way down to run some further time off the clock and then throw the flag. Ever since the Miami-Pittsburgh game at the beginning of the year, the officials are very liberal with allowing coaches all the time they need to challenge. In this case, it worked out badly for us. You probably have to give him credit for good clock management now that I think of it. Because if he challenged early, we still had that play in the bank and we’re going to run it no matter what happens. We knew that Marvin had caught the ball. If he challenges too late, obviously we score a touchdown. He did it just right. He waited until the clock had gone down as far as it could, then went ahead and challenged. He lost the challenge, but it took a touchdown away from us. There may have been a whistle, although I didn’t hear one.
Q: Can you comment on the pass interference penalty that was not called on Dallas safety Roy Williams when he pushed tight end Dallas Clark in the first half? It looked like the ball was in the air when Clark was hit . . .
A: That was a legal shot, in my opinion. If you’re in the five-yard area, as long as you do it legally, you can do it as hard as you want. Roy Williams is a hard-hitter, so he just came up there and blasted Dallas. Peyton released the ball believing Dallas would be there on time. Great credit to Roy Williams. Not only did he blast the receiver legally, but he made the interception, so a good play on their part. Good coaching and good execution.
Q: The defense has been criticized a lot this season. But don’t they deserve some credit for stopping teams when it matters? On Sunday, they only allowed 14 points . . .
A: On Sunday, they played awfully well for three quarters – maybe as well as they’ve played this season. They turned the ball over. We didn’t get anything done with the turnovers they created. We didn’t finish it in the fourth quarter. We had the unfortunate penalty, which negated an interception that would have been the turning point in the game, in my opinion. But they’re getting better. Part of that is (defensive tackle) Anthony McFarland, who had a phenomenal game Sunday. He’s getting better. Bob (Sanders) is going to be back. Gary Brackett is going to be back. So, they’re getting better. We don’t have any self-doubts. We don’t need any psychoanalysis. We don’t need Dr. Phil to come in and help us get through the trauma of losing to the Dallas Cowboys. Obviously, I’m speaking with tongue in cheek, but the bottom line is we’re a good defense and getting better. As Tony is always fond of pointing out to the players, there’s perception and there’s reality. The perception is largely driven by mostly the electronic media. The perception there is wrong. It doesn’t square with the facts and it doesn’t even square with the facts of Sunday’s game. But having said that, you always have to give your offense the opportunity to fail. Your offense is not going to be perfect week after week. So, when you have a week such as Sunday where we weren’t hitting on all cylinders offensively, the defense has to keep you in the game, which they very much did. When they have the opportunity to win the game, as they very much did and deserved to do, they have to take advantage of it. We had that opportunity and we did execute – all but for the penalty – and probably would have put the game away there. You can’t let mistakes get in the way of that. The positive is we made a lot of plays that we hadn’t been making prior to Sunday. That’s a good thing.
Q: And now, the Quick Change of the game . . .
A: The Quick Change of the game was (Colts defensive end) Dwight Freeney’s sack and fumble early in the game. That broke some momentum on the part of Dallas and gave us an opportunity. It was a real good play by Dwight. It’s good to see him getting some statistical credit now for having played as hard as he has played all year. They singled him up. He created a sack and a fumble and that was the last time they singled him the rest of the day.
Q: What were some of the positives you saw late in the game?
A: I think the most positive play was Marvin’s great, leaping catch on a go route. He beat the corner and we ate up about 45-to-50 yards of real estate and put ourselves in position to tie the game. Unfortunately, the replay challenge negated a touchdown and we weren’t able to get it in. But it doesn’t take away from Marvin’s great play and the job done by both Peyton and Marvin to create the play. We almost did that 5 o’clock lightning again. You have to finish it and unfortunately, we didn’t on Sunday.
THE POLIAN CORNER
By staff - Colts.com
Q: A 21-14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. It has been two full years – since October of 2004 – since the Colts lost a regular-season game with playoff implications. A disappointing loss, but it really has been a remarkable run . . .
A: It’s very hard to do, but in 30 years in the National Football League, I’ve always believed that good teams fall into the following categories. They usually play 8-to-9 really good games. Then, they play between 3-and-4 mediocre games. Then, they play between 2-and-3 poor games. If the poor game happens to be against a reasonably good team, the likelihood is you’re going to lose. Some years, there is an imbalance in the conferences and you will have good teams who play poor gamrs against awful teams and they win, but we happened to play our poorest game offensively – and because of the fourth quarter, a very mediocre game defensively – against a good team. As a result, we ended up on the losing side. That’s all there is to it. We’ve got to get back to work and not play that kind of a game again.
Q: Anything particularly concerning jump out at you from the Dallas game?
A: I think everything we did Sunday can be fixed. We did a lot of things that are very out of character. We dropped the ball seven times by my count. We don’t normally drop seven balls in three games. That’s one thing. We also had some mental errors in terms of pass protection. We also had lots of physical breakdowns in pass protection – lots by our standards. The quarterback (Peyton Manning) got hit a fair amount, which shouldn’t happen. It especially shouldn’t happen in a situation where you can pretty much predict where the rushers are going to come from. Offensively, it was fits and starts: good drives, poor drives, drops, penalties – things of that nature. Defensively, we had three outstanding quarters – maybe the best we played all year. Then, an awful fourth quarter. The turning point of the game was in the fourth quarter when we had an interception in the end zone, then had a penalty take it away. Instead of the score being 14-7 and us having the ball with about eight minutes to go in the game and probably getting at least a field goal out of that, they end up tying the score and getting all the momentum on their side in their ballpark. So, that’s an error that should never happen, especially with the technique required of the player at the time. It’s just a poor game. Not good at all by our standards, and we’ve got to get better at it. But I will say this: as we dissect the game – and it will be dissected a thousand different ways by a thousand different pundits – I’ll give you NFL 301. There are only two statistics that count in the National Football League, and they are as follows: No. 1, yards per pass attempt; and No. 2, turnover margin. Rushing yards don’t count. Sorry to tell all the stat mavens out there, but the team that rushes the most doesn’t always win. And if it does, it’s by accident. It’s not a meaningful statistic. What counts are yards per pass attempt – and you take sacks into consideration on that – and turnover margin. We lost both of those battles on Sunday. Ergo, we lost the game.
Q: The fumbles and turnovers in the last two weeks – really uncharacteristic for the Colts . . .
A: You can’t have them. We’ve got to get that straightened out and that’s usually just a matter of concentration or technique. The one interception was not the quarterback’s fault. The other was probably a throw he’d like back. You’re going to have those every now and then, but on the road against a good team, it’s difficult to overcome those kinds of things.
Q: And with Cowboys Head Coach Bill Parcells on the other sideline, you know exactly what kind of game you’re going to get . . .
A: That’s why the called-back interception was so important. It occurred about the eight-minute mark of the fourth quarter. If we take the ball down and take three-and-a-half minutes off the clock – and we had it around our 35 – they’re going to be down 17-7 or 21-7 with five minutes to go in the game. That’s a pretty long road to hoe for them. That, to me, was the pivotal play in the game. There are always three or four plays that determine the outcome and to me, that was the pivotal play, but it’s something you can correct. So, you move on and we do, and here we go next week with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Q: A day later, what’s your impression of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo?
A: I think he’s good. When all of the so-called experts were harping on, ‘You’ve got to stop the run,’ I said, ‘I don’t like the match-ups in the secondary in the passing game with Tony Romo, who can escape the pocket and make plays down the field and with our old nemesis (wide receiver) Terry Glenn.’ Everybody’s talking about the other receiver. Terry Glenn’s the guy that week in and week out gets the job done. They held Terry Glenn out of the Arizona game so he would be ready for us. Bill Parcells is Bill Parcells because he does those kinds of things. That was the match-up we were worried about and it turned out to be a big factor. Now, we didn’t play as well as we should have in the secondary, but it really only came in the fourth quarter. That’s correctable. We can get those things straightened out.
Q: Why wouldn’t the Colts have run on 3rd-and-2 from the Cowboys 8 late in the game?
A: No. 1, they were in a defense where they had those linebackers up on the line of scrimmage playing the run. If you had (former Steelers running back) Jerome Bettis, for example, it might be something you would try, but (Colts rookie running back) Joseph Addai’s 215 pounds, not 260 pounds. Do we need perhaps – in the future – a short-yardage goal-line back? Sure, we could use one, but if you don’t have that guy, then you take what the defense dictates to you, which is to throw the ball. On fourth down, we think there was a penalty in the end zone that should have extended the drive. We’ll see what the officiating department says, but I wouldn’t second-guess the play calls.
Q: Why wouldn’t have the Colts thrown the ball into the flat – or thrown short – in the same situation?
A: That’s what we tried to do on the third-down play. On the third-down play, we went for (Colts wide receiver) Marvin (Harrison) on a go route and they covered it, which will happen from time to time. On fourth down, they took (Colts wide receiver) Reggie (Wayne) away. He (Manning) had (tight end) Dallas (Clark) in the end zone. We think there was a penalty there. It wasn’t called, and so the ball went incomplete, well over Dallas’ head. Had Dallas not been contacted and prevented from going to the ball, it wouldn’t have looked as bad as it did on television. (Former Buffalo Bills and Hall of Fame Head Coach) Marv Levy, my mentor in this game, used to say, ‘Whatever you did, if it didn’t work out, you should have done the other thing.’ I wouldn’t second-guess the play-calling. I would like to have – and I’ve said this before – a big blaster who could make two yards in that situation. I think that’s the easiest way to play your game – is to be able to blast in the red zone. That’s the easiest way to be a high-scoring team. But we just haven’t had the opportunity to draft a guy like that. We haven’t found him – let me put it that way. We’ve looked hard every year, but we haven’t found him.
Q: And running back Marion Barber of Dallas fits that kind of mold?
A: He probably does, but I’m thinking more of the Bus (Bettis) or somebody like that. (Larry) Kinnebrew, in the old days in Buffalo – he was an automatic first down. (Former Kansas City Chiefs running back) Christian Okoye, (current Chiefs running back) Larry Johnson – some guy like that, 250 pounds who just goes in there and blasts people out of the way. If you have that fellow, your red zone offense becomes a lot better.
Q: Is Addai progressing as you want him to? And how did he look Sunday?
A: He is progressing exactly as we want him to and he looked great Sunday. He made a miraculous run where he made a guy miss and turned a five-yard loss into a 12-yard gain. He blocked tremendously Sunday against a team that’s pretty tough to block. He stopped (Dallas outside linebacker) DeMarcus Ware – who, by the way, is a great rusher – in his tracks. He’s just getting better and better by the day. We’re really pleased with him. He had 38 plays Sunday and (starting running back) Dominic (Rhodes) had 27, which give or take a few is probably the right ratio.
Q: The Colts only lost Sunday by seven points despite committing four turnovers and playing far from their ideal game. What does that say about the team and is it a good sign?
A: Don Shula, probably the greatest coach of all-time, told me many, many years ago that every time you go out there to take something positive away. You can’t ever wallow around in the loss and you certainly don’t want to wallow around in the curbstone psychoanalysis and finger-pointing that goes on in the electronic media. The positive is that we had four turnovers and we’re in the game and have a chance to probably salt the game away very late in the fourth quarter, so that’s a testament to our defense that played better against the run – against a very good running team that was determined to run – than they have played all year. (Middle linebacker) Rob Morris really had a great ballgame. He has had two great ballgames in (middle linebacker) Gary (Brackett)’s absence. That is a positive. You take that away and you feel good about it.
Q: What happened on the holding penalty against (cornerback) Jason David that nullified the interception?
A: Jason has outside position there. He knows that (safety) Antoine (Bethea)’s inside him. All he has to do is funnel him to the inside. What he did was grab the jersey – albeit probably inadvertently. But a jersey grab is a jersey grab and it’s a foul. I led the charge to have it made a foul on the NFL Competition Committee. What I said was, ‘If you grab a jersey in the school yard in the eighth grade, it’s a foul. Why isn’t it a foul in the National Football League?’ The answer is it is. You shouldn’t grab jerseys. We teach not to do it. He did and he got a flag on it and it changed the game dramatically. But you learn from it and you move on. There were years in the mid-1990s and even into the early part of this century when the officiating department said, ‘Well, it’s OK to grab a jersey and we’ll decide how great the restriction is.’ As a result, guys were going out there with longshoreman’s hooks and grabbing receivers and you heard, ‘No, no, there isn’t any restriction there.’ Restriction meant you yank him off of his feet. That’s no way to play the game.
Q: When a quarterback spikes the ball to stop the clock, why isn’t that called intentional grounding?
A: There is an exception in the rule for that. If you spike the ball in attempt to kill the clock and you throw it immediately to the ground after taking the snap, the official does not rule it intentional grounding, nor will he rule it illegal forward pass if it touches an ineligible receiver as long as you spike it first. That’s the exception and that’s why we do it.
Q: And if it hits a lineman on the way down?
A: They generally let it go. They presume that if you spike, you’re spiking for the reason of stopping the clock.
Q: Near the end of the game, on the play on which the Colts were called for a 15-yard face mask penalty, it appeared the Dallas player also grabbed the Colts player’s facemask. Why was that not offsetting penalties?
A: In my opinion, it was two facemasks. It probably should have been offsetting penalties. We’ll see what the officiating department has to say. Obviously, the officials on the field have the final say and they called it the way they did. By the way, it was a good crew Sunday. They did a pretty darned good job. Our last play of the game we thought was a foul, but it doesn’t detract from the job they did in a tough ballgame.
Q: What was your opinion on the timing when Bill Parcells challenged Colts wide receiver Marvin Harrison’s catch in the fourth quarter?
A: I questioned it at the ballgame because I didn’t see Bill down there. I presumed we had thrown a touchdown pass (from Manning to Colts tight end Ben Utecht) to tie the game. Some of the folks I was sitting with said, ‘No, he threw the flag in time.’ I looked at the tape Monday and while you can’t see him (Parcells), I can see the official stopping the clock on his side of the field just before the ball was snapped. One of our staff people said he thought that Bill was waiting for the clock to run all the way down to run some further time off the clock and then throw the flag. Ever since the Miami-Pittsburgh game at the beginning of the year, the officials are very liberal with allowing coaches all the time they need to challenge. In this case, it worked out badly for us. You probably have to give him credit for good clock management now that I think of it. Because if he challenged early, we still had that play in the bank and we’re going to run it no matter what happens. We knew that Marvin had caught the ball. If he challenges too late, obviously we score a touchdown. He did it just right. He waited until the clock had gone down as far as it could, then went ahead and challenged. He lost the challenge, but it took a touchdown away from us. There may have been a whistle, although I didn’t hear one.
Q: Can you comment on the pass interference penalty that was not called on Dallas safety Roy Williams when he pushed tight end Dallas Clark in the first half? It looked like the ball was in the air when Clark was hit . . .
A: That was a legal shot, in my opinion. If you’re in the five-yard area, as long as you do it legally, you can do it as hard as you want. Roy Williams is a hard-hitter, so he just came up there and blasted Dallas. Peyton released the ball believing Dallas would be there on time. Great credit to Roy Williams. Not only did he blast the receiver legally, but he made the interception, so a good play on their part. Good coaching and good execution.
Q: The defense has been criticized a lot this season. But don’t they deserve some credit for stopping teams when it matters? On Sunday, they only allowed 14 points . . .
A: On Sunday, they played awfully well for three quarters – maybe as well as they’ve played this season. They turned the ball over. We didn’t get anything done with the turnovers they created. We didn’t finish it in the fourth quarter. We had the unfortunate penalty, which negated an interception that would have been the turning point in the game, in my opinion. But they’re getting better. Part of that is (defensive tackle) Anthony McFarland, who had a phenomenal game Sunday. He’s getting better. Bob (Sanders) is going to be back. Gary Brackett is going to be back. So, they’re getting better. We don’t have any self-doubts. We don’t need any psychoanalysis. We don’t need Dr. Phil to come in and help us get through the trauma of losing to the Dallas Cowboys. Obviously, I’m speaking with tongue in cheek, but the bottom line is we’re a good defense and getting better. As Tony is always fond of pointing out to the players, there’s perception and there’s reality. The perception is largely driven by mostly the electronic media. The perception there is wrong. It doesn’t square with the facts and it doesn’t even square with the facts of Sunday’s game. But having said that, you always have to give your offense the opportunity to fail. Your offense is not going to be perfect week after week. So, when you have a week such as Sunday where we weren’t hitting on all cylinders offensively, the defense has to keep you in the game, which they very much did. When they have the opportunity to win the game, as they very much did and deserved to do, they have to take advantage of it. We had that opportunity and we did execute – all but for the penalty – and probably would have put the game away there. You can’t let mistakes get in the way of that. The positive is we made a lot of plays that we hadn’t been making prior to Sunday. That’s a good thing.
Q: And now, the Quick Change of the game . . .
A: The Quick Change of the game was (Colts defensive end) Dwight Freeney’s sack and fumble early in the game. That broke some momentum on the part of Dallas and gave us an opportunity. It was a real good play by Dwight. It’s good to see him getting some statistical credit now for having played as hard as he has played all year. They singled him up. He created a sack and a fumble and that was the last time they singled him the rest of the day.
Q: What were some of the positives you saw late in the game?
A: I think the most positive play was Marvin’s great, leaping catch on a go route. He beat the corner and we ate up about 45-to-50 yards of real estate and put ourselves in position to tie the game. Unfortunately, the replay challenge negated a touchdown and we weren’t able to get it in. But it doesn’t take away from Marvin’s great play and the job done by both Peyton and Marvin to create the play. We almost did that 5 o’clock lightning again. You have to finish it and unfortunately, we didn’t on Sunday.
posted by The Gryphon at 7:07 PM
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