* *
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (general comments) Monday, December 17, 2007
"It was very nice yesterday to win that ballgame to get one step closer to our goals, get our division locked up. It was a tough win. It seems like it always is for us when we have to do that, it seems like it's on the road, and tough games. But I was proud of our guys, the way they hung in there. We had a chance to maybe make it a little bit easier, but couldn't stick it in from the one-yard line to make it 17-0. Oakland, that was an impressive drive. They came back and just pecked away at us and got it to 10-7, and from then on it was really a tough, tough game. Sometimes it's good to win games like that. We showed that we could make some plays in the fourth quarter, both offensively and defensively, and that was good to see. Special teams-wise, we had a little bit of an up-and-down day. T.J. (Rushing) had the great start for us, then fumbled a kickoff and fair-caught a ball on the four-yard line. We'd like to not have that happen, but obviously the return was a big, big play for us and got us jump-started. Our coverage was good on punts, not as good as we need it to be on kickoffs. Again, we'll just have to continue to work at that. All in all, going on the road, getting a win to clinch the division, it was a fun plane ride home."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on now with the division clinched and a bye, where he draws the line between resting injured players and also maintaining the rhythm at the same time) Monday, December 17, 2007
"We definitely want to maintain a rhythm. We want to continue to improve. We have a lot of guys who do need to play and play more. We have some guys who probably we can rest, guys that are a little bit injured. But a month is a long time, so we have to continue to practice well, continue to gear up. I would foresee that kind of being what happens, that we really look at least this next game as playing like we normally would."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on if he thinks it helped playing Kansas City at home in the Wild Card Game last season to maintain a weekly flow) Monday, December 17, 2007
"It probably got us in a rhythm and got our confidence going. But certainly if we would have had the choice whether to play a game and go to Baltimore or have the week off and have Baltimore come here, I think we would have rather had it the other way. We were disappointed when we didn't beat Houston last year and let that number two seed slip away. I think we'll know how to handle the rest and we'll do it well, and I think we need it a little bit differently than last year. We've had a lot of different lineups and a lot of people out of the lineup, where last year we had Bob Sanders but not many others at that point in time."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on the guys who have missed because of injury, if he wants them back for the regular season or will take a hands-off approach for them to stay healthy) Monday, December 17, 2007
"We'd like to get those guys out there when they're healthy enough to go.
