HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on sticking with the hot hand in terms of who ran the ball against the Raiders) Monday, December 27, 2010
"(RB-Dominic Rhodes) was making some things happen obviously out there. I thought all three guys had pretty productive days, but Dom certainly got things rolling pretty well. We just let him go a little bit with it, but overall, when you look at their performance, I think it was a great collective effort."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on the offensive line and its improvement on run blocking) Monday, December 27, 2010
"I think the big thing is that we are not using any different plays. We are not doing anything different from a schematic standpoint, but I do think we have gotten better week in and week out just in terms of fundamentals and techniques. I think we are doing a better job just controlling the line of scrimmage. I think the guys up front are communicating very well. They have finally gotten to the point where you have roughly the same group that has played together for a fairly decent length of time, and so I think you are starting to see some of the benefits of that."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on no serious injuries coming out of the game) Monday, December 27, 2010
"The way this game goes, you never know, but we hope that would be the case. But I am not certain. Sometimes it takes a day or two before you get a sense of what happened to them out there."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on RB-Dominic Rhodes and the heart he brings to the team) Monday, December 27, 2010
"Dom has a real infectious personality. I know you guys know that who have had an opportunity to interview him, and he is very, very passionate about what he does. As a matter of fact, you heard him before you saw him. That's just the way he is. He can come in and light up a locker room and guys love to be around him. He is a great, great teammate and it's infectious, his enthusiasm. He has one of those engaging personalities and he has really added a spark along with (the fact) he knows the system and that makes it even better. He did not have to feel his way to be a contributor. He has helped us quite a bit."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on Rhodes playing a few years younger than his age) Monday, December 27, 2010
"He has exhibited some youthfulness out there, and I think that has kind of been his trademark. Dom has always had that great spirit about him, and he displays that when he gets the ball under his arm."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on dynamic of playing a team the Colts have seen recently in Tennessee) Monday, Monday, December 27, 2010
"Obviously they are a bit more fresh in your mind simply because you did prepare not too long ago, but also there are so many things that change in terms of team dynamics within a couple of weeks around here. It is week to week sometimes in this league. It is day to day, I should say in this league, actually. We still are going to have to go about it in the same way in terms of our preparation. We are still going to have to study them, but we know for a fact that they will be well prepared. They will come in and play extremely hard and it has always been competitive games against us, and that's the way it is. It is a huge rivalry year in and year out. I do not think that will ever change."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on how tough it is not to scoreboard watch) Monday, December 27, 2010
"It is pretty easy not to. There is a lot going on on that field. You have to stay focused on your task at hand and you just cannot be affected by anything like that just in terms of looking for other folks' help, other teams' help. I think that kind of gets you distracted, and when you get distracted in this league, I am going to tell you, you are gong to have some problems. Our guys have done a great job I think of staying really focused of not getting caught up in scenario central, trying to reduce things to the lowest common denominator, and that lowest common denominator is that we have to win. So that is what we try and continue to focus on."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on LB-Gary Brackett attributing the run defense's success to better tackling and simplification) Monday, December 27, 2010
"Perhaps he is referring to the fact is that one of the things in the last several weeks that we have been trying to preach is speed and simplicity. We have tried to boil it down to those things and we try to make things as simple as we possibly can in terms of our game plan so guys can use what God has given them as an attribute and that is the ability to run. Our team is based on speed, and so we have been trying to preach that and get that across. I think you are starting to see some benefits of it. As a result you get yourself in a better position to tackle. You do not have as many seams if you do things the right way. I think all across the board our guys are guys are doing a better job of gap control, and when you do that, you do not let anyone have any straight downhill runs at you and it improves your angles to tackle."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on RB-Joseph Addai saying he felt better coming out of the game than when he went in) Monday, December 27, 2010
"I think perhaps it is mental as it is anything. The mental is to the physical 10 to one. You go into a game certainly when you have been inactive as long as Joe has been, you have some questions as to, 'OK, how well will I handle this hit?' Because we cannot emulate the hits he will take in a ballgame in practice. So there are some unknowns. There is some uncertainty there. I think after he got in there and took a couple of hits and made a couple of runs, he felt really good about his progress and he could handle the rigors of the game once again."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on Dominic Rhodes exceeding expectations) Monday, December 27, 2010
"We try to make it a habit of not placing limitations on people, and we knew that he had ability. As a matter of fact we made mention just the other day. We were talking about Oakland had some similar qualities to Baltimore; a lot of man-to-man, a tough defensive scheme, (and he) ran the ball extremely well in 2008. So I happened to go back and take a look at the film, every single one of the clips on offense and defense, and Dom had some big runs in that game. I think Dom might have run for 78 yards in that game, and that was another year where he had kind of come back to us and played extremely well. With him, I just don't think you place any limitations on anybody. We know he is capable and he certainly demonstrated that yesterday."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on DT-Antonio Johnson's performance) Monday, December 27, 2010
"He flew around. He ran around well. Particularly, you probably saw him run down that screen which was impressive. Mook, for a big man, when he sets his mind to it, he can go. Mook gives you everything he's got. He's tough in there in the middle and I really thought he stepped up and played and played well."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on being a team of running back by committee) Monday, December 27, 2010
"We hope that we will be able to utilize all of them at some point and time. So I think we can get a pretty good mix. It is great to have those guys available to us."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on who might be back this week) Monday, Monday, December 27, 2010
"In both cases (RB-Mike Hart and LB-Clint Session) both guys are coming along. I still think they will be day-to-day once we get back to work on Wednesday. Obviously they are doing rehab and those kinds of things now. So we will get a little bit better idea where they are. Hopefully, hopefully we will get maybe one or two guys back."
HEAD COACH JIM CALDWELL (on DB-Kelvin Hayden having a relapse) Monday, December 27, 2010
"He had a bit of an episode during practice a couple of weeks ago now. So he is still in the process of mending and being evaluated at the same time."
