(Are you encouraged how Collins made it through this week?)
Yes. I think Nick's done a good job. It's a painful injury, and I look for him to go on Sunday. He's done a nice job.
(Have you decided what you're going to do with the other safety spot?)
Derrick Martin will have the starting nod at safety.
(How has he progressed, especially this week?)
He's done a good job. You could see that right away, back in Week 1, his instincts and particularly his range in the back end. I'm impressed with him physically, what he's done on special teams. Very bright, a lot of carry-over from our language to his experience in Baltimore. So he is ready to go.
(I'm confused by the injury to Collins. You said it was a clavicle, but that's a bone and you can't sprain a bone, so is it the A/C joint?)
It's where it's connected on the bottom right here.
(Is B.J. closer to being activated?)
He practiced today. He tweaked his ankle at the end of practice yesterday, so I need to look at the film. I watched him live. We'll look at the film and I'll talk to Dom and Mike Trgovac. It's clearly a medical decision. If he's ready from a medical standpoint, he'll play. If not, it will be another week.
(What's the difference between his ankle injury where he practices all week and Daryn Colledge last week when he was limited but still played?)
I mean, they're two totally different injuries. Daryn Colledge had a foot sprain, and B.J. has an ankle. A lot of times when you're dealing with sprains, they go through the rehab test and they look fine running and so forth, but it's different for an interior lineman when you're in there and you're pushing on two 300-pound men, or they're pushing on you. So until I see him put his foot in the ground and turn and break and have the naturalness to his gait that he showed before, I don't think he's ready to play. Every injury is different.
(Did Brandon have a significant setback with the ankle and how dicey is it to keep going into games with only two healthy halfbacks?)
Well, Brandon, probably a lot like B.J., his has taken longer than probably he would like. He practiced Wednesday and he couldn't go yesterday, so he definitely took a step back. As far as the two halfbacks, we've been working John Kuhn as our third ball-carrier, so we feel like we're covered there.
(Did you go inside to simulate the dome atmosphere?)
Went inside for a number of different reasons. The field turf, the crowd noise, it's different inside than outside. And also the fact that we're playing in a dome.
(Are you looking to have Quinn Johnson ready in case Korey is not?)
Yes, Quinn took a lot of reps today just in case Korey is not ready to go. Korey Hall will be a game-time decision.
(What do you think you can get out of Quinn in his first game?)
What do I think I can get out of him? Well, he's ready to play all the normal down-and-distance stuff. Third down, I don't foresee him being in there. But we expect him to go and contribute in the base offense and some of the situation offense, and also play some of the special teams segments.
(How do you approach the week after a game like Sunday? Do you light into the guys on Monday and then take the focus off that, or do you need to do the fire and brimstone sometime during the rest of the week?)
I think it matters on how you feel and how you think the pulse of your football team is. I don't prescribe to a book, I don't look at an outline to follow. I conduct my meetings. I do my most vocal and direct communication in the team meeting room. I feel that's the most productive for myself. I have everybody's complete attention in there. And I trust my gut and I trust how I view the pulse of the team. How it played out this week Monday, they know exactly how I felt after the game, excuse me Sunday right after the game, and carried that message through Monday, and went through specifically what needed to change. From there, Wednesday, I felt it was more important to get back to talk about us. I think a lot of times particularly coming into these type of settings dealing with the media, everybody wants answers to their questions, and there's an attempt to ride a roller coaster. That's not the view of the football team, regardless of how it's written or perceived outside of the building. I hope I am communicating that properly without any emotion because I'm not disagreeing with you here, I just have a different view than yours. It's important for a football team to stay on track. We did some things last week that we feel we can do a lot better, I think that's very obvious. It's important for them to have clear communication, simple communication, because I think it's like anything in life. You get too many opinions, you overanalyze things, it eliminates progress, and we're all about progress. Number one, winning and making progress. That will never change as long as I'm the head coach.
(I don't think I have a different opinion. I was just taken aback by the end of the press conference on Wednesday.)
I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I frankly wanted to talk about St. Louis. You guys wanted to talk about Cincinnati. I just took it as an opportunity to change the subject. I'm sorry ...
(That's OK. I asked about the offensive line stepping up to the challenge and you gave your answer...)
Absolutely. But you wanted to live in yesterday. I wanted to talk about today. Let's talk about the game. Anything else about the game? All right, thanks.
