HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on if he will be on the cautious side with injuries) 12/2/04
"We have enough quality players, and that's why you have 61 guys (with practice squad). The guys, we'd rather them play at 100 percent, use the backup guys and not have guys go in and just re-injure themselves week after week."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on how G-Rick DeMulling has done at center this week) 12/2/04
"Actually pretty good. There hasn't been any miscues in practice. The physical part after the ball is snapped is not that much different for him. So, it will be a matter of snapping in the game and being comfortable. But so far, so good."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on why passing numbers are up across the league) 12/2/04
"I think it's a new age of quarterbacks. I think it's offensive coordinators and the way they're thinking. It's the rules, making it a little easier to throw. It's better receivers coming into the league and taking advantage of that. It's easier to throw if you can protect. It's easier to throw. Now you have to be able to protect and keep people off balance that way. But, we've done a lot of things in the last few years to open up the passing game. I think the rules committee has done that and wanted to open up the passing game. I think we're seeing a lot of special offensive players come in the league. I mean, you're seeing receivers, Jeremy Shockey type guys that are different than what maybe was in 10 years ago. It is, it's more of an offensive league."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on if the five-yard enforcement on receivers has had an impact) 12/2/04
"I think it's helped and it kind of has helped people's thinking in terms of 'Hey, if this is the way it's going to be called, we can get some things going in the passing game.' And more people are throwing the ball more."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on protection being so important now with accurate quarterbacks like Peyton Manning) 12/2/04
"That's the big thing. If you can protect, it's easier to throw. And it helps your protection to be able to run the ball, but it's a passing league right now."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on the two games he saw Dan Marino in 1984) 12/2/04
"He was very sharp, very similar to what you're seeing (with Peyton Manning). They ran the ball, probably not as effectively as we've run it this year, but it was a passing attack that you knew you had to stop. He was on fire. He came up to Pittsburgh. They beat us 31-7 and really just kept us off-balance and did a good job. We played them in the championship game down there in Miami, and it was more of a shootout. We were scoring and they were scoring. We actually, I think, had the lead at halftime, and he threw four or five touchdown passes in the championship game."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on what he thought Pittsburghhad to do to stop Dan Marino in the 1984 season) 12/2/04
"You really thought about getting pressure, and that was early on in his career. And then the more people pressured, the more you saw that he was getting the ball out so quick. And it was really tough in those days to single-cover because they had Mark Duper and Mark Clayton. Duper was a guy who could run by people and got deep a lot and Clayton was quick and could catch deep balls, but was a guy who could run intermediate routes, too. So, if you pressured and didn't get there, you put yourself in a lot of one-on-one coverage. And there weren't as much of the zone blitzes that people are running now. So, it was more of, I remember those two guys being around 20 touchdowns as opposed to five or six guys. It was really Duper and Clayton that did the majority of the damage."
