(Is this more what you were looking for in an all-around performance?)
Yeah, we felt it was definitely a winning performance in all three phases. We felt coming into Cleveland that the special teams had the biggest challenge, and I was pleased with the outcome of holding Cribbs to his return yardage because he is a dynamic football player, especially every time he touches the ball both in the 'Wildcat' and in the return game. The productivity on defense really starts with the ability to continue to win on first down. I think we're doing an excellent job up front winning the run defense and keeping Dom Capers in favorable down-and-distance defensive calls and it gives us the ability to play an up tempo, a lot of pressure and so forth. I was very pleased with the defensive performance, and I thought we were very productive on offense so we had the ability to go up and down the field. You always want to score more points, but as a day, for all three phases, I was very pleased with our work here.
(Was it the best performance of the year on the ground?)
Yeah, definitely. Anytime you can continue to run it the way we did, it definitely helps you. You're not ever pressing. We were able to establish the run early in the football game on the first series, and once again the most important statistic in my view running the football is attempts, and we definitely hit the mark today.
(Is that what you were attempting to do on the first drive, to come out and establish the running game?)
I always have a starting point; maybe I view it differently than some. I think you go into every football game prepared to run it and prepared to throw it. Games go different directions. I'm not as good as the people that can predict how games are going to go each week, so I'm ready to go in any direction. I've made mistakes before trying to tilt my game plan in one direction, but our starting point was definitely to run the football today, no question, and we were able to establish that again for four quarters.
(Are you getting a little concerned with the shortage of pass catchers?)
That's my biggest concern coming out of this game. Jermichael Finley and Brett Swain both suffered knee sprains. We'll have those guys test tomorrow and have more information for you tomorrow. That's the one thing you hate to walk out of here today having a couple of players go down. Frankly it factored in that one goal-line stand that Cleveland was able to establish against us. We were out of our goal-line offense and had to generate some things through different personnel groups that we had not planned for. Anytime you lose your fourth receiver and third tight end, it definitely taps into some of your personnel groups on offense.
(Since October 5, how much better are you?)
Well, we're a good football team. That's one thing I know. I've always felt that way. We're in the second quarter of our season. The ability to win games and continue to grow is our focus. I feel like we've definitely accomplished that the last two weeks, and we're looking forward to playing the Vikings at home.
(Derek Anderson started 5-for-5. What did you do differently as the game wore on?)
I felt both in the run and the pass, and particularly to answer your question in the protection, I thought the ability to get after him and rush his time clock was definitely a factor in the game.
(What happened on the long touchdown pass to Donald?)
They came with a certain type of pressure. Frankly it's the exact same look we practiced in practice, so you always feel good as a coach when that happens especially when the result was what it was with Donald. Aaron did a great job recognizing it, hit Donald in stride and Donald did the rest of the work.
(Can you talk about your team's two goal-line stands?)
Red-zone defense, that's one of the key situations. I thought they were definitely huge for us today.
(Did Havner show you something on the touchdown?)
Spencer, he's been around here for three years, playing linebacker the first year or so. He's a good athlete. He's a utility guy, can do a lot of different things, and I was just real proud the way he finished there. I didn't know if he was going to make it but he did a great job finishing.
(Did you know he was a home-run-type player?)
Well, when you throw a delay route to him, you don't usually think it's going to go that far. That's a big credit to him.
{sportsad300}(You've thought about facing Brett before, but what about him coming back to Lambeau?)
Shoot, I haven't even thought about it. I think that's probably more for him. Trust me, I know more than anybody everything that swirls around playing football against Brett Favre in another uniform, but we're focused on beating the Vikings. It's an important division game. It is every year. I understand all the things that are added to it, but we feel like we're really improving as a football team, and we want to prepare, have a good solid week of preparation, get healthy and be ready to go.
(Are Chillar and Jenkins OK?)
I was just told they all returned to the game, so I don't forsee any problems with them.
(Spitz was good enough to go?)
Correct. He had an extensive workout Friday, didn't have any reaction to it, so we felt he'd be best used in a backup situation.
(Aaron's confidence was pretty evident...)
It starts up front, the ability to run the football. I thought he played with a good time clock today. They gave him excellent protection. When you talk about being in a rhythm and playing with tempo, and they prefer to slow the game down so you had a contrast in styles there today, so I thought our guys did a good job staying with the up tempo. It was a different type game, some of the game management issues with the time clock and stuff like that. I thought our guys did a good job of keeping the sideline up, the management of the whole thing and staying after these guys for 60 minutes.
(What'd you see in the offensive line?)
Without seeing the film, my gut is I thought they played well. We did a lot of the inside and outside zones today, and I thought the communication on their part was good on the sidelines with some of the adjustments we made, particularly after losing Jermichael and Brett because we lost a lot of offense just as far as what we were prepared to do in this game. I thought they handled the adjustments very well too.
(What did you think of the penalties?)
I need to look at them, a couple of them frankly. I don't want to be redundant or disrespectful of your questions. My view is the same every week. We're going to be aggressive, and the pre-snap things you don't have any time for, so they're not tolerated. We'll continue to correct them, and we'll continue to push forward.
(On the 12-men on the field penalty?)
That was a coaching error. That's my responsibility. We had an injury. We made a substitution, and the communication was inaccurate so it's kind of a good problem to have. You've got players covering for players when someone goes down, and the communication should have been cleaner. We had two guys go in because of the injury.
(Was that for Swain?)
Correct.
