HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (general comments) * *
"It is good to be back. It's good to be one of only eight teams preparing to play this week, and that's what I always tell our team, that's something special and you want to keep that going. It's quite an honor to be in the final eight, to know who we're playing, and I do think we have the four best teams in the AFC still in it. It's going to be a fun weekend and we're going to have our hands full with San Diego. People have told me that we're healthier and we're playing better, and I believe that's true. I don't think we'll play a game like we played out there, but I think San Diego is playing better. They were in the process of finding themselves, too, earlier in the year, and I think they're pretty grooved now with a seven-game winning streak and knowing what they do well and all their components. They've looked pretty good in the last few weeks to me. So it should be fun, it should be exciting. I think it's going to be good for our city, and I know our guys will be energized. We're going to just do a little bit today, really not do a whole lot on San Diego, give our coaches this evening and tomorrow to prepare, and we'll start up in earnest on Wednesday. I've gotten note from our trainers that they expect everybody with the possible exception of Ben Utecht—Ben might still be a little sore and be limited on Wednesday—but everybody else should be ready to go, and that will put us the healthiest we've been in a long while. So one of the benefits of the bye I think is going to pay off for us, and now it's up to us just to get ourselves ready and get dialed in on San Diego."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on with the injuries in the last game at San Diego and it being a different team, can he take anything out of that game or is it two different teams)
"I don't think there will be a lot to take out of that game, what happened one way or another. We do know this, that they're very explosive on special teams and we have to do a much better job of handling Darren Sproles. We know who their talented guys are, obviously (LaDainian) Tomlinson and (Antonio) Gates are the guys who get the focus on offense and then the two outside linebackers on defense. But they have a lot of good players, and we have to certainly play better than we played out there. I think we're in better shape to do that. I think we'll play much better, and we're looking forward to it."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on if like a year ago, if he plans on putting starters on special teams for the post-season)
"We'll look at it, and I would expect to see some of those guys on there. We're going to put the best coverage units we can have out there, and that may include some of our front-line guys I would think; especially with the linebackers, we'll get a lot of those guys out there. We'll look at it and see."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on being hesitant to put DE-Robert Mathis on special teams because of his knee injury)
"We'll see how he is. I would say that's true, with him not playing in a couple of weeks, we would hesitate to have him on those long runs, but if it's necessary and he's healthy, you could see him."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on RB-LaDainian Tomlinson)
