HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(general comments following Sunday's loss vs. Jacksonville) 10/25/04
"After looking at the game, it's still very disappointing to play at home and have a big game like that and not really get the job done the way we had hoped to. I said after the game and feel the same way today, you have to give Jacksonvillecredit. They played like the veteran team. They played with a lot of poise and came back several times and made plays to win the game. And we didn't play with that same amount of poise and focus. When we do that, we have a tough time winning. We haven't done it much this year. We've cut it down just about every year, but yesterday, when you have the penalties and turnovers that we had, and some missed assignments to keep things going for them, and our kickoff return unit making some errors to really hurt our field position, it becomes tough to win and really tough to win against good teams. And we didn't get it done. We would have been lucky to win yesterday, and we didn't have that luck.
"And we go to Kansas City, they have a unit that you can't make those same type of mistakes or it will be the same thing. But if we play well, we can win the ballgame, and that's what we have to get ourselves set to do."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on the kickoff return team and field position) 10/25/04
"We averaged the 17-yard line on our kickoff return. It's very difficult to get anybody inside the 20 these days, and we were back there all day."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on the mistakes on special teams) 10/25/04
"Unfortunately, the whole game was like that, like we had not practiced at all, the first time we lined up and went out on the first day of training camp, with false starts and penalties and thought-process mistakes you shouldn't have this far along in the season."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on what they can learn coming off a tough loss) 10/25/04
"Hopefully, what we learn is that when we play well and when we play sharp, we're tough to beat. In games where we turn the ball over, give up big pass plays and we have a lot of penalties, we make it tough for ourselves to win. I think we know that, so what we have to focus in on are the ways to eliminate those things from happening. I don't think our team is going to lose any confidence. I don't think we're going to be distraught over losing the ballgame, but hopefully, we focus in on what happened and why it happened, and we'll get that corrected."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on if the next few weeks will be challenging) 10/25/04
"It was a challenging first five or six, and the last six will be challenging. We have the first-place schedule, and whether you have the first-place schedule or the fourth-place schedule, they are all tough games."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on playing week in and week out) 10/25/04
"The thing that's happening right now in the NFL, you only have a couple of teams that are playing to their level week in and week out. Kansas Cityis the same way. They kind of did the same thing we did against Jacksonvilleand they go home and score 56 points. So, which Kansas Cityare we going to see? We have to assume we're going to see the 56-point team, and then hopefully, we'll bring our 56-point team, too."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on why so many road teams are winning this season) 10/25/04
"I just think that games are more evenly matched, and when you have evenly-matched teams, I don't think it matters where you play. Generally, when a team is much better than someone else, they're going to win at home, but you're not getting that happening as often. So, I think it's more just the competition being a little more level."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on if good teams come together on the road) 10/25/04
"I think the home crowd definitely has an impact on the game and how the game is played, but I think as a team, you have to be able to go on the road and win, and good teams do that. We've had a better record on the road every year than we have at home. I think we focus in when we go on the road, we know it's going to be tough. We should be a very, very good home team with the surface and our noise and the atmosphere there, but when you do some of the things we did (vs. Jacksonville), you can have 100,000 people in there cheering for you and it's not going to help."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY(on the run defense) 10/25/04
"We're still just very inconsistent. We'll get tested in the next couple of weeks. I think Minnesotais leading the league, Priest Holmes is a Pro-Bowl back and we'll definitely see him, and we'll see Domanick Davis. So, we'll probably have a better idea at the end of next month."
