azdad1978
Championship!!!!
Head Coach Mike Holmgren
On giving the players the entire bye week off…
“I have done that a number of different ways. Honestly we were a little banged up and sore. If we had kept them in town we would have practiced Wednesday and Thursday and I’m not sure how good those practices would have been. I did this one other time in Green Bay and it turned out well. That was the year we won the Super Bowl. I like our group but I told them this was a trust thing. They all worked out on their own and came back. They earned it and worked real hard in the early part of the season and I was real comfortable with it.”
On Warner returning to the line up…
“I saw that today and he started against us in the first game in Seattle. Kurt knows how I feel about him. We have a little history together. Josh I thought played very well in spots when he was the starter. I don’t expect Arizona to change dramatically what they do on offense. Josh is a little bit more mobile than Kurt I think but Kurt has the experience going for him. Our game plan defensively I wouldn’t think would change too much.”
On Shaun Alexander…
“I’ve always been confident in Shaun as a runner. I think he is a really outstanding runner and his record shows that. People make too much of the things I say about Shaun. I’ve always felt in the areas of pass protection and in pass receiving, those are the areas he can work hard on and improve on. He has done that and I couldn’t be more proud of one of our players than I am in Shaun and what he has tried to do in those two areas to become a complete back. Everyone knows he can run and his numbers are just phenomenal since he has been in the league. I think he is much much closer to being the total complete back that people would like. He is having a great year and like I said at the beginning of the year, if he continued to approach his games as he approached training camp, he has the chance to have his best year ever.”
On injuries at receiver…
“To say that it wouldn’t change what you do would be foolish. I think the rest of the offensive guys, including the guys that have stepped in at wide receiver have done a great job. That is what we kind of expect. If an injury takes place, unfortunately as injuries take place in the business, the next guy comes in and we don’t change dramatically. We expect them to come in and play. They are all good football players, otherwise they wouldn’t be on the football team. It is a little different with a starter because if something a little different in their game but I’m not going to try to change dramatically what we try to do.”
On Bobby Engram…
“Bobby is a very popular young man on the team. He is not a big huge guy but he probably has the biggest heart of any guy on the football team. He just over the years for us he has been a very dependable receiver as well as a punt return man. He was very valuable on third down situations. He has great hands and he is a tough guy. He really will do anything and is a hard working guy. We’re hopeful that we will get him back this week but that remains to be seen. I’m hoping he comes back. That would just give us a little bit of a boost because he is one of our good players.”
On the loss Ken Hamlin…
“I think the whole team has dealt with it pretty well because that was an emotional situation for us. He is a very popular guy on this team and he was very very sick. I’m happy to report he is feeling better and improving. He won’t play anymore football this year but Marquano Maneul and Jordan Babineaux and the rest of the guys on the secondary that have had to come in and take Ken’s position have done a great job. It is very similar to losing a player to injury on offense. They come in and work very hard and I think if you ask the defensive coaches they would tell you they are very pleased with how those guys have filled in for Ken.”
On the ending of the Dallas game and the momentum into the bye week…
“I came down to our home in Phoenix last week and not speaking for anyone else but it made my week great. It was really an emotional win. I’ve never been involved in one quite like that. Dallas in my opinion is a very fine football team but we were fortunate and we got it done. I had made a deal with the team that if we won the two games against the Texas teams that I was thinking about giving them the whole week off. If that helped in their motivation then I’m glad about it.”
On the importance of kickers…
“I don’t think they are any more important than years past but you guys have an outstanding kicker. He is really awesome and I think our kicker Josh Brown is good to. In the NFL where there are so many close ball games and the teams really are very close most games are decided by a touchdown or less. The field goal kicker is very important. I don’t think it’s any more than in the past but if you have a good field goal kicker you have a little bit of a lay up.”
On how often he comes to Phoenix…
“We bought a house down there three years ago and actually my children are going to come down and stay there this weekend and come to the game. I have not been there very much. It was kind of a place that we look to when I’m finished with this crazy business but we love it. I love that area and I got to ride my motorcycle a little bit and enjoy the sunshine. It was a great week for us.”
On teams trying to stop Alexander and not being successful…
“Anytime you are a marked man, a good player in this league and when you are an outstanding running back every defense is geared up to stop you. It boils down to Shaun is going to do what he does and it boils down to our offensive line in my opinion. I think those guys have done a great job this year. They don’t get talked about a great deal but we have two Pro Bowlers on our left side who are really good football players but the other three guys are really good too. The fact that we have been able to keep them together is huge because the offensive line is the one group that continuity means a lot.”
QB Matt Hasselbeck
Q. How are things in Seattle?
A. “Awesome. Sunny, got about SPF 45 on right now. No, it’s raining. It’s not nice. Looking forward to coming to Arizona.”
Q. Things can’t be too bad since you’re 5-2?
A. “No, that’s true. But the weather is not nice. You have to complain about something.”
Q. Shaun Alexander has said there is a better chemistry with this team. Would you agree?
A. “I think what we feel is that we’re coming to work, we’re very focused, we’re working hard. It just seems like we’re more mature on a daily basis.
Do we have more mature people? No, not really. We have pretty much the same people.
As an example, we just came off the practice field. There’s not a lot of false chatter or rah-rah, not a lot of pep talks by coaches. It’s just a very business-like atmosphere where we’re focused on nothing but football.
We’re not a team that has had a lot of distractions this year. We’re not a team that people from New York, or the national media outlets, they’re not coming out to Seattle to do features on us, which is great, which is fine for us. We’re just focused on football and I think that’s what we’re talking about. It’s just been a nice year that way, and we’ve been able to just go out and worry about football and nothing else.”
Q. Difficult to get the intensity up after taking a week off?
A. “Not at all. I think if anything it will be easier. We had practice Monday. It was crisp. It was great. Everyone was fresh. After seven games, not that you’re injured, but you get some bumps and bruises, you’re tired.
Coach Holmgren did something he’s never done before with us. He gave us the entire week off. We saw him Monday and he said, ‘ok, I’ll see you next Monday.’
“And then he gave us yesterday off also. Instead of guys sticking around and hanging with each other, most people went home and saw their mom and dad and friends and family. For the most part, I think it was pretty mellow for everybody. So we’re ready to go. We’re healed up. We’ve got some guys who are injured who are going to be back. We feel good about that. If anything this should be the easiest game for us to get up for because it’s been a week since we played.”
Q. Is it important to be in that mindset, since you beat the Cardinals in the first match up of the season?
A. “I don’t think we’re overconfident. We respect this team. We know they have a good coaching staff. We know last year when we went down thee they gave us a bunch of exotic looks that we really hadn’t seen before and they took it to us. I personally had a tough game.
"We do have so much respect for these guys. We spent an off-season getting to know them a little bit better. We watched them during the season this year. We know they are a dangerous team. We know they have some talent. We also feel good about our plan. We’ve got a game plan this week that is very good. I know it will work. It’s just up to us as players to make that happen.”
Q. The injuries to your receivers haven’t slowed you, at least as far as throwing downfield?
A. “That’s something coach Holmgren will say all the time. I think when our guys got hurt this year, Bobby Engram and Darrell Jackson, coach Holmgren almost went the opposite way, saying ‘we’ve going to get more aggressive.
We’re going to go downfield more, and it worked out for us. Last week against Dallas we had some weather that wasn’t real cooperative for that kind of game plan, but for the most part, we’ve had a lot of success that way. We’ve been blocking really well on the run and also in pass protection. It’s been a great ‘so far, so good’ for our offense. Everything has worked out.”
Q. Is Bobby Engram back?
A. “I’m not the injury list guy but it looks good to me.”
Q. What does he bring to the offense?
A. “I’ve said before, in a lot of ways Bobby Engram is the heart and soul of our offense. He’s just a great football player, probably a guy who has been overlooked his whole career, in terms of not being tall enough or fast enough or whatever enough. I remember when the Chicago Bears cut him, I said to myself, ‘that’s a sign of bad things to come for the Bears’. Because you don’t get rid of a guy like that , no matter what the reason is. It turned out to be true. He came to us, we signed him right away and he’s been nothing but phenomenal for us. He’s a clutch guy. He’s a leader in the huddle, on the field, in practice. He’s a tough guy. He’s a great run blocker, a receiver and all that stuff. And obviously he and I have played together for a long time, so there is a comfort level that’s not necessarily there with the new guys, even though they’ve done a great job as well.”
Q. What do you think happened last year in your game at Sun Devil Stadium?
A. “We had a lot of things that week. We lost Bobby Engram that week and signed Jerry Rice. We had distractions. We had new guys. We said, ‘ok, Jerry Rice is the greatest receiver of all time. We’re just going to throw him in there and he’s going to be Bobby Engram. He’s been in this offense before.’ And that was unfair to Jerry. It just didn’t work out that way. Even us as a team didn’t realize how valuable Bobby was, and Arizona came out real aggressive. They did some blitz things that we had never seen them, or anyone else in the NFL, do and created some problems for us. It took us awhile to figure out what they were doing and to handle it. We turned the ball over. I had four interceptions, and you can’t turn the ball over like that and expect to win.”
Q. Compare and contrast this year’s team with those of the past?
A. “I don’t think we’re overly confident. There is a fear in us every week that ‘ok., we have to have an answer for this, we have to have an answer for that. We have to be ready for this situation.’
“We’re afraid to lose. There is a fear to lose. That’s part of the reason we work so hard during the week in practice. We don’t have this fat-cat syndrome like we haven it all worked out. Our coaches are on us. Our coaches are even a little cranky at times. We’ve had good practices. They aren’t letting us feel good about ourselves, even though at this point in the season our record is decent. We’ve got a lot of work to do. At the same time, there is a bit of confidence when you do get in those situation where our offense has the ball and we have an opportunity to put this team away, to put this game away. I think there is a confidence here that we e haven’t had in the past, that we’ve worked hard all week, we’ve prepared for this situation. Let’s go out and have an 80-yard drive or whatever it may be and let’s put this team away.”
On giving the players the entire bye week off…
“I have done that a number of different ways. Honestly we were a little banged up and sore. If we had kept them in town we would have practiced Wednesday and Thursday and I’m not sure how good those practices would have been. I did this one other time in Green Bay and it turned out well. That was the year we won the Super Bowl. I like our group but I told them this was a trust thing. They all worked out on their own and came back. They earned it and worked real hard in the early part of the season and I was real comfortable with it.”
On Warner returning to the line up…
“I saw that today and he started against us in the first game in Seattle. Kurt knows how I feel about him. We have a little history together. Josh I thought played very well in spots when he was the starter. I don’t expect Arizona to change dramatically what they do on offense. Josh is a little bit more mobile than Kurt I think but Kurt has the experience going for him. Our game plan defensively I wouldn’t think would change too much.”
On Shaun Alexander…
“I’ve always been confident in Shaun as a runner. I think he is a really outstanding runner and his record shows that. People make too much of the things I say about Shaun. I’ve always felt in the areas of pass protection and in pass receiving, those are the areas he can work hard on and improve on. He has done that and I couldn’t be more proud of one of our players than I am in Shaun and what he has tried to do in those two areas to become a complete back. Everyone knows he can run and his numbers are just phenomenal since he has been in the league. I think he is much much closer to being the total complete back that people would like. He is having a great year and like I said at the beginning of the year, if he continued to approach his games as he approached training camp, he has the chance to have his best year ever.”
On injuries at receiver…
“To say that it wouldn’t change what you do would be foolish. I think the rest of the offensive guys, including the guys that have stepped in at wide receiver have done a great job. That is what we kind of expect. If an injury takes place, unfortunately as injuries take place in the business, the next guy comes in and we don’t change dramatically. We expect them to come in and play. They are all good football players, otherwise they wouldn’t be on the football team. It is a little different with a starter because if something a little different in their game but I’m not going to try to change dramatically what we try to do.”
On Bobby Engram…
“Bobby is a very popular young man on the team. He is not a big huge guy but he probably has the biggest heart of any guy on the football team. He just over the years for us he has been a very dependable receiver as well as a punt return man. He was very valuable on third down situations. He has great hands and he is a tough guy. He really will do anything and is a hard working guy. We’re hopeful that we will get him back this week but that remains to be seen. I’m hoping he comes back. That would just give us a little bit of a boost because he is one of our good players.”
On the loss Ken Hamlin…
“I think the whole team has dealt with it pretty well because that was an emotional situation for us. He is a very popular guy on this team and he was very very sick. I’m happy to report he is feeling better and improving. He won’t play anymore football this year but Marquano Maneul and Jordan Babineaux and the rest of the guys on the secondary that have had to come in and take Ken’s position have done a great job. It is very similar to losing a player to injury on offense. They come in and work very hard and I think if you ask the defensive coaches they would tell you they are very pleased with how those guys have filled in for Ken.”
On the ending of the Dallas game and the momentum into the bye week…
“I came down to our home in Phoenix last week and not speaking for anyone else but it made my week great. It was really an emotional win. I’ve never been involved in one quite like that. Dallas in my opinion is a very fine football team but we were fortunate and we got it done. I had made a deal with the team that if we won the two games against the Texas teams that I was thinking about giving them the whole week off. If that helped in their motivation then I’m glad about it.”
On the importance of kickers…
“I don’t think they are any more important than years past but you guys have an outstanding kicker. He is really awesome and I think our kicker Josh Brown is good to. In the NFL where there are so many close ball games and the teams really are very close most games are decided by a touchdown or less. The field goal kicker is very important. I don’t think it’s any more than in the past but if you have a good field goal kicker you have a little bit of a lay up.”
On how often he comes to Phoenix…
“We bought a house down there three years ago and actually my children are going to come down and stay there this weekend and come to the game. I have not been there very much. It was kind of a place that we look to when I’m finished with this crazy business but we love it. I love that area and I got to ride my motorcycle a little bit and enjoy the sunshine. It was a great week for us.”
On teams trying to stop Alexander and not being successful…
“Anytime you are a marked man, a good player in this league and when you are an outstanding running back every defense is geared up to stop you. It boils down to Shaun is going to do what he does and it boils down to our offensive line in my opinion. I think those guys have done a great job this year. They don’t get talked about a great deal but we have two Pro Bowlers on our left side who are really good football players but the other three guys are really good too. The fact that we have been able to keep them together is huge because the offensive line is the one group that continuity means a lot.”
QB Matt Hasselbeck
Q. How are things in Seattle?
A. “Awesome. Sunny, got about SPF 45 on right now. No, it’s raining. It’s not nice. Looking forward to coming to Arizona.”
Q. Things can’t be too bad since you’re 5-2?
A. “No, that’s true. But the weather is not nice. You have to complain about something.”
Q. Shaun Alexander has said there is a better chemistry with this team. Would you agree?
A. “I think what we feel is that we’re coming to work, we’re very focused, we’re working hard. It just seems like we’re more mature on a daily basis.
Do we have more mature people? No, not really. We have pretty much the same people.
As an example, we just came off the practice field. There’s not a lot of false chatter or rah-rah, not a lot of pep talks by coaches. It’s just a very business-like atmosphere where we’re focused on nothing but football.
We’re not a team that has had a lot of distractions this year. We’re not a team that people from New York, or the national media outlets, they’re not coming out to Seattle to do features on us, which is great, which is fine for us. We’re just focused on football and I think that’s what we’re talking about. It’s just been a nice year that way, and we’ve been able to just go out and worry about football and nothing else.”
Q. Difficult to get the intensity up after taking a week off?
A. “Not at all. I think if anything it will be easier. We had practice Monday. It was crisp. It was great. Everyone was fresh. After seven games, not that you’re injured, but you get some bumps and bruises, you’re tired.
Coach Holmgren did something he’s never done before with us. He gave us the entire week off. We saw him Monday and he said, ‘ok, I’ll see you next Monday.’
“And then he gave us yesterday off also. Instead of guys sticking around and hanging with each other, most people went home and saw their mom and dad and friends and family. For the most part, I think it was pretty mellow for everybody. So we’re ready to go. We’re healed up. We’ve got some guys who are injured who are going to be back. We feel good about that. If anything this should be the easiest game for us to get up for because it’s been a week since we played.”
Q. Is it important to be in that mindset, since you beat the Cardinals in the first match up of the season?
A. “I don’t think we’re overconfident. We respect this team. We know they have a good coaching staff. We know last year when we went down thee they gave us a bunch of exotic looks that we really hadn’t seen before and they took it to us. I personally had a tough game.
"We do have so much respect for these guys. We spent an off-season getting to know them a little bit better. We watched them during the season this year. We know they are a dangerous team. We know they have some talent. We also feel good about our plan. We’ve got a game plan this week that is very good. I know it will work. It’s just up to us as players to make that happen.”
Q. The injuries to your receivers haven’t slowed you, at least as far as throwing downfield?
A. “That’s something coach Holmgren will say all the time. I think when our guys got hurt this year, Bobby Engram and Darrell Jackson, coach Holmgren almost went the opposite way, saying ‘we’ve going to get more aggressive.
We’re going to go downfield more, and it worked out for us. Last week against Dallas we had some weather that wasn’t real cooperative for that kind of game plan, but for the most part, we’ve had a lot of success that way. We’ve been blocking really well on the run and also in pass protection. It’s been a great ‘so far, so good’ for our offense. Everything has worked out.”
Q. Is Bobby Engram back?
A. “I’m not the injury list guy but it looks good to me.”
Q. What does he bring to the offense?
A. “I’ve said before, in a lot of ways Bobby Engram is the heart and soul of our offense. He’s just a great football player, probably a guy who has been overlooked his whole career, in terms of not being tall enough or fast enough or whatever enough. I remember when the Chicago Bears cut him, I said to myself, ‘that’s a sign of bad things to come for the Bears’. Because you don’t get rid of a guy like that , no matter what the reason is. It turned out to be true. He came to us, we signed him right away and he’s been nothing but phenomenal for us. He’s a clutch guy. He’s a leader in the huddle, on the field, in practice. He’s a tough guy. He’s a great run blocker, a receiver and all that stuff. And obviously he and I have played together for a long time, so there is a comfort level that’s not necessarily there with the new guys, even though they’ve done a great job as well.”
Q. What do you think happened last year in your game at Sun Devil Stadium?
A. “We had a lot of things that week. We lost Bobby Engram that week and signed Jerry Rice. We had distractions. We had new guys. We said, ‘ok, Jerry Rice is the greatest receiver of all time. We’re just going to throw him in there and he’s going to be Bobby Engram. He’s been in this offense before.’ And that was unfair to Jerry. It just didn’t work out that way. Even us as a team didn’t realize how valuable Bobby was, and Arizona came out real aggressive. They did some blitz things that we had never seen them, or anyone else in the NFL, do and created some problems for us. It took us awhile to figure out what they were doing and to handle it. We turned the ball over. I had four interceptions, and you can’t turn the ball over like that and expect to win.”
Q. Compare and contrast this year’s team with those of the past?
A. “I don’t think we’re overly confident. There is a fear in us every week that ‘ok., we have to have an answer for this, we have to have an answer for that. We have to be ready for this situation.’
“We’re afraid to lose. There is a fear to lose. That’s part of the reason we work so hard during the week in practice. We don’t have this fat-cat syndrome like we haven it all worked out. Our coaches are on us. Our coaches are even a little cranky at times. We’ve had good practices. They aren’t letting us feel good about ourselves, even though at this point in the season our record is decent. We’ve got a lot of work to do. At the same time, there is a bit of confidence when you do get in those situation where our offense has the ball and we have an opportunity to put this team away, to put this game away. I think there is a confidence here that we e haven’t had in the past, that we’ve worked hard all week, we’ve prepared for this situation. Let’s go out and have an 80-yard drive or whatever it may be and let’s put this team away.”
