IndianapolisQB Peyton Manning
CONFERENCE CALL
(on if there is any carry over from last year's game here) "Obviously, the incentive when you play the Jaguars is it's a huge AFC South game. It's always a game between two good teams. Jacksonville is playing as well as anybody in the league right now. They're 4-1 and always tough to play at home. That's the incentive. You're going try to play your best football and try to get a win on the road in the AFC South. We always talk about how important division games are and just how they count double. We always put more emphasis on those division games and that's the reason this is an important game because it's this year and this season, not anything in the past."
(on how well he thinks they are playing) "I don't know. I think it's week to week. We talk about just trying to get better each week and trying to improve. Hopefully, we have made some improvements on the bye week. We hope to get some guys back that were injured. They guys that were healthy got better and improved and certainly feel rested. We have a really tough game this Monday night against Jacksonville. It's very much a week-to-week type business in my opinion. It's trying to be better and execute every single week, what you did last week, in my opinion, it's often times irrelevant."
(on if he thinks this could be a preview to the division championship coming up) "That's way too early to say that. It's our third division game. When the schedule came out, we noticed that our first three division games were on the road. Three games that we lost last year were all of our three division games on the road. We are starting off with a tough test and had good wins, tough wins in Tennessee and Houston, but this is a different animal here because Jacksonville is very tough at home. It's a loud place to play; it's a tough test for us."
(on his thoughts about the perfect record so far) "Well, we have just played five games. It's important, I think in the AFC to get off, to a good start because you don't want to be playing from behind in a game, in the score of a game or in the standings of the conference race or the division race. We always talk about getting off to a good start and we have, but all that is just a start. Now we are kind of in the second quarter as Coach (Tony) Dungy likes to do, break the season down into quarters, and it was a good first quarter, but we are the second quarter and it's trying to be sharp in this second quarter and trying to keeping executing."
(on Anthony Gonzalez's transition) "He has had to learn sort of by fire. (We are) throwing him right in there due to some numbers situations and due to some injuries at times. He has had to play early and that's, in my opinion, sometimes the best way to learn. Get right in there and face live defenses and blitzes along with the live man-to-man coverages. I think he has learned a lot in a short period of time. He is still continuing to learn, but he is a guy that every single practice and meeting, certainly every single game, is very valuable to making him more comfortable in the offense."
(on what it's like having a rookie at left tackle) "We have certainly lost a number of guys last year due to various reasons – injures, free agency, retirement. When that's case, you're going to replace them with different guys with veteran guys in certain positions, but certainly with young guys at other positions. When that happens, you do whatever you can to help the young guys come along. Obviously, they have to grow up in a hurry and play well, but the veteran guys have to help those guys with the transition and offensive linemen have really helped Tony (Ugoh) with the transition."
(on if he is taking more hits this year than he did in past years) "So far I haven't, no. Like I said, you're still trying to be on time when your decisions and receivers. Try to get open on time and the protection has been good."
(on if seeing the old quarterbacks in the league makes him think he can play another decade) "I haven't really thought about that especially, when you are in the middle of a season, you just look towards the next game. It's really all you concentrate on. Jacksonville gives you plenty to think about much less thinking about next week, much less thinking about years from now. I'm pretty much concentrating on the present."
(on his thoughts about brother's success right now) "Obviously any time you start out 0-2, it can be a tough situation this week. You don't want to fall behind, but they have done a great job of sticking together and pulling out four wins to get themselves back in a decent position. I was real proud of Eli (Manning). He was injured in the first week against Dallas and doctors pretty much told him that he wasn't going to play and shouldn't play. Yet he rehabbed his shoulder real hard and answered the bell which kept his consecutive starts streak moving. It's really more about being there for his teammates and I w
