QB-PEYTON MANNING(on if avoiding a letdown has entered his mind) 10/6/04
"It really hasn't. Obviously, when you're playing Oakland, a team that's very aggressive on defense, and really, if it wasn't for some turnovers on offense, you're looking at a 4-0 team right now. You know what you're going to get playing the Oakland Raiders. They're an aggressive team that knows how to win, and it's an important game for us. Like I said, coming back here at home, going into the bye week, it would be nice to be able to get a win."
QB-PEYTON MANNING(on the Raiders' experienced defense) 10/6/04
"Any time you can come by an excellent pass rush with an excellent cover secondary makes for a good defense. With Warren (Sapp) and (Ted) Washington, you're always going to get a good push up front. (Charles) Woodson and (Philip) Buchanon are arguably two of the top cover corner tandems in the league. They are both shut-down corners. It makes for a good defense."
QB-PEYTON MANNING(on what his focus for the offense is) 10/6/04
"Offensively, we want to get better. We want to keep scoring points. We'd like to get a little better on third down. We've done a good job of staying in third and shorts. Talk about three-to-five (yards), we've had a number of those, and we haven't converted some of those. And that's stopped some drives. Most of the drives we have been stopped on have been our fault. We'd like to improve that, keep our drives going and keep putting up points."
QB-PEYTON MANNING(on how much room the Colts have to improve offensively) 10/6/04
"I really think we can keep improving, I really do. You look at last week's game, obviously we didn't get the ball very much, but the times we got it and were stopped, give Jacksonville credit, but a lot of it was a wrong route here or there, just a missed assignment here or there, things that we did to kind of stop ourselves. So, we'd like to fix those things and be hitting on all cylinders to keep drives going."
QB-PEYTON MANNING(on the lack of penalties against the Colts) 10/6/04
"That's something that (Head) Coach (Tony) Dungy has really stressed for us. We take it very seriously in trying to play smart football, not trying to hurt ourselves."
QB-PEYTON MANNING(on if it is harder going into a bye week or coming out of one) 10/6/04
"Nobody is really thinking about the bye week at this point. We're playing Oakland. Obviously, I think the bye week is coming at a pretty good time because we have some guys that are beat up. The fact that we are 3-1 at this point with the injuries that we have had says a lot about some of the depth we have at certain spots. Guys have been able to step up, and hopefully we can keep that going this week."
QB-PEYTON MANNING(on WR-Jerry Rice) 10/6/04
"I think people take what he's doing for granted, and the fact that he's still playing at a high level. Some guys are able to just hang on in certain spots, but he's a receiver out there in practice going against (Philip) Buchanon and (Charles) Woodson. The speed he's able to run his routes with, it's nothing short of phenomenal."
