HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (opening comments)
"It is fun to be here at the start of the regular season, to get work in and to get rolling. I think this is what everybody looks forward to. The first part of our year is actually finished and that's putting the team together, getting ourselves organized and getting what we think is the best 53-man team ready to go. Now it comes into preparation, actually getting ready for game week, preparing for the Bears and it's going to be fun. We're looking forward to it, excited. We're not really doing anything on the Bears (Monday). We just want to come in and get good work, get our whole group here and get that weekend run out of us and be ready to go on Wednesday."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on the roster cuts)
"We did it like we always do – try to look at who can do what for us, who can do a lot of things. We probably leaned a little more heavily on defense, as we normally do, but we have some versatile players on offense. We decided to keep four tight ends rather than keep four running backs. Courtney Roby and Roy Hall do some very, very good things on special teams and that tipped the scale at wide receiver. We were able to claim two guys on defense that we think are going to help us. Buster Davis we liked coming out of college and he's been in Detroit's system, knows what we're doing, and plays with a lot of energy. We really, really liked him anyway and thought we had a chance to upgrade our linebacker corps. (DT) Dan Muir was a guy that (team president) Bill (Polian) saw, and showed me the tape on him and thought he would be a good, bigger body to help us shore up the interior of our line. We think those two guys are going to help us and we like where we are right now."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on if keeping two QBs means Peyton Manning and Jim Sorgi are good to go)
"From everything we hear, that looks like that's going to be the case. We've been a two-quarterback team and right now we just felt like that was the way we were going to go and felt like we'd be fine."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on how the Colts ran the ball well vs. the Bears in Super Bowl XLI)
"A lot of it is situation – time in the game, score, getting the momentum – all those kinds of things. We ran the ball well, especially in the second half. It was the type of game where you had to run it and our guys did a good job. I'm sure they're going to look at that tape and look at the way things are done. Both teams are going to play the same style of defense, basically. Both teams' defensive players could probably call the other team's defense when they see them line up, so it's really a matter of execution. It's not anything where we had plays that they didn't know about or they had running plays we don't know about. They're going to run their plays at a defense they have practiced against for four years and we are going to run our plays at a defense we've practiced against for seven years. Somebody's going to execute well and win, and in the Super Bowl it was us."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on how big of a challenge it will be to run the ball given the injuries to the OL)
"We have to be able to run the ball to win. We think we will be able to run it. The toughest thing for us is not going to be the injuries that we have – I think our guys will do fine, but they'll have (DT) Tommie Harris, who they didn't have last time, and that'll be different for sure. It's really just doing your job and executing your techniques. We'll have confidence that (QB) Peyton (Manning) will get us in the right plays, the plays that we should run against the fronts that we see."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on if keeping 12 rookies is normal)
"It probably is with a team like us. Where we are salary-cap wise, we are going to have to continue to have young players play. I think for us, between eight and 13, 14 rookies is probably the way it'll be for the next few years.
"We say when our guys come in the first day of mini camp that's we expect.
