On Atlanta's offense: "Matt [Ryan] does a good job using both tempo and their players. They do a good job of using their guys. They've got players at all positions, they know each other well, they make subtle adjustments on their formations to get guys in positions to be successful. They're going to run the same plays; they're just going to make it look a little different. They do a nice job with that. All their players do their jobs very well. They've done a nice job of growing together with the quarterback."
On Roddy White: "Roddy White competes. He runs good routes. He can run the whole route-tree, as coaches say, and he catches the ball. He likes playing football a lot. He catches, he blocks, he does everything."
On challenge on third down against Atlanta: "Sure, but that's what you want. This is the NFL, you're competing against the best. Our job is to be the best, to beat the best you've got to play the best. They're really good. They box you out, of course Tony [Gonzalez] can do it because he played basketball. They box you out, they run correct routes. Matt, he sees defenses very well. It's a great challenge. That's what we have to do. We have to execute, compete, and challenge guys on third down. We had a nice day of challenging in every situation out on the practice field. We need to take that practice and apply that to the game. It's the same, you can't play really fast out here on this field and just because you're on a different field not play really fast. We need to do a better job of that."
On trying to move on from bad plays: "Sure, you've got to find a way to get them the heck off the field. That's our job. What we control, we don't control how we get on the field defensively, we control how we get off the field. That's our job. I don't know where they're going to get the ball. Our philosophy is, and we've got to learn how to do this, we have to to apply our rules better and do this, is to get the heck off the field, it doesn't matter where they get it."
On teaching a defense to get 11 people to the ball: "There's a couple of ways. Having worked for Mike Nolan, a lot of the things that we do defensively, and a lot of my background being around him, he's a great coach, he does a great job of getting his guys, getting the players, to do that. Some things are showing film. Some things are knowing where your help is. You can really go fast with the correct angle when you know where your help is. That's what happens when you're teaching defense, you go, 'Oh, well I wasn't sure that he was where he was going to be.' Well, you have to be sure, and you have to trust that he's going to be there. Some of the other ways are when we identify who's running and who's not we've got to get 11 guys to the ball like I said last week. There's a lot of ways you can do it, but really, it comes down to this - when you play, you've got to go play. They players get the good job. They get to go play football. Most of us that are around it would give anything to have one more shot, even cover one more kickoff or make one more tackle just to get feel that again. It's a great game for that reason. It's teaching and coaching with adrenaline, and that's how you have to play every play is that passion. What we have to do is harness that. What you have to do as a player is get that out of yourself every play. That's where we have to go. We have to find a way to do that all the time. That's what the best do."
On Andre Carter: "Andre is an experienced pass rusher, a whole bunch of career sacks. He's been practicing very well out here. He's really helped the group too. He's helped the group for a lot of reasons. One because he's here competing with them, competition makes you better, and two because he's such a great pass rusher with his hands he can help some of our guys with their moves, etcetera. That's the deal. When we get put in one-on-one positions as rushers, as cover guys, we've got to win, that's our job. That's why you're a professional, because you want to be the best. You've got to compete and win, and that's where we have to go. We have to win our one-on-one matchups."
On limiting explosive plays: "Here's what we've done - we have not given up that many explosive plays on those. But what we've got to do a better job is, we've got to get more incompletions, we've got to challenge more, so that it's second and 10 instead of second and six. When a quarterback isn't sure what he's looking at he goes, 'Uh, check down.' When he does that, you've got to go tackle the guy faster. We've got to be quicker to tackle check downs, or screens, we can do a better job there, and we've been working on that. We have to do a better job on check downs, and we've got to get tighter coverage so that we force more incompletions. All of that there will create longer third downs. That's the emphasis on base downs. How quickly can we get to the check down. Make him throw where we want, then go get him. We've got to keep limiting those explosive plays. Then, we've got to limit further, instead of six yards they get three, instead of three yards they get one. That comes from what we just talked about. How much do I want to make a play? Where's my help? And let's go."
