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**Q: Coach talked a little bit about "burying the body" on Monday night are you supposed to do that, do players do that?**
D: It is hard for everybody that is involved. We all have an emotional investment in these game, probably even more so in the game Monday night with it being a division game and with it being the Jets and so on. As players we all have an emotional, it's impacted emotionally by a game like that. So then what you do is you recognize that and it becomes a challenge to come back out today with a short week, put that one behind you, move on and start preparing for the next one. It is not an easy thing to do. It takes a very conscious and very deliberate effort to do that, but that is one of the challenges that you face and frankly that every team faces during the course of a season. Nobody has gone undefeated in the league for a long time. I think since I was born no one has gone undefeated in the league, so everybody has to deal with these situations during the course of a season. It is one of the determining factors ultimately as to how successful you are, how you deal with these things and move on from them.
Q: The Super Bowl year you started out this way and that year you made the playoffs, what did that team do to achieve that?
D: It is basically exactly what I just said. You deal with the losses, you learn from the mistakes, and you go on and you try to make things right the next week. I think that we can see from these first two games that we are close and there are good things that came out of both games. Against the Jets we did a lot of things well and there are things to build on. Some of the positives that came out of that game: we have only turned the ball over one time in two games and we have limited our penalties, we only had two penalties in the game for seven or eight yards. So we are doing some of the things that you need to do to win. We increased our third down efficiency dramatically this last game. The one thing that killed us was our red zone production and I think that was very apparent to anybody that watched the game or just saw anything about the game is that if we had produced in the red zone at a higher level we win that game. So obviously that is going to be an area of concentration for us this week.
Q: Any one specific thing in the red zone that you have nailed down?
D: No, not one specific thing. When you get into the red zone it really becomes about individuals making plays. Whether it is a throw into tight coverage, which you always face because of the shorter field, whether it is an individual catching a ball, breaking a tackle and getting into the end zone, whether it's somebody giving the extra effort on a block, whatever it is it really becomes more about individual effort when you get into the red zone. On top of that you also have to do the obvious. Everybody has to be on the same page and execute properly which is true all over the field, but particularly when the field is shortened up.
Q: Are you confident right now to make that throw into coverage, as someone who has changed systems as much as you have do you feel comfortable enough to make that quick decision and go with it?
D: I have guys that I have confidence in. If I put the ball in there for them that they can go get it for me. When those opportunities are presented I have confidence I am going to go ahead and put it in there, but I am also going to continue to play with discipline in the red zone and make sure that we come away with some points as opposed to taking a chance at turning the ball over. There is a fine line there that you walk as a quarterback as to when exactly you take the chance and stick the ball in there and when you have to live to fight another day and not turn the ball over so you come away with points. It is something that you deal with as a quarterback. So far through these first couple of games I think that my decision-making for the most part has been fairly good in red zone as to when I had an opportunity to try and stick the ball in there and when I had to realize that there just simply wasn't anything there.
Q: By the time the dust settled you were sacked six more times, how much of a pounding can you take?
D: As a quarterback, and as a quarterback in this offense where we are obviously going to throw it a bunch you are going to get hit. This last game was much better than the first game. Our protection for the most part was pretty good through the first at least 3 ½ quarters of the game when we were executing our game plan, running the ball, mixing it up, play action, and so on. We did get into a little trouble when we had to pass they knew we were going to pass and that is obviously when you are going to put the pressure on your protection. One sack I ended up taking on purpose so that we had to force them to take a timeout and there were a couple of other ones that I think were attributed to people other than the lineman. For the most part I thought they made a dramatic improvement in that area from the first game to the second and we have to continue to go onward and upward from there.
Q: Coach had talked about your increased fluidity rolling out of the pocket, do you feel much more comfortable doing that than you did previously?
D: It is something that I have paid extra attention to. In particular the small movements in the pocket, two steps here, two steps there, those are the kind of things that I have paid special attention to. Getting outside the pocket and moving around in that way has not been by design, but it has been largely a result of the two teams we have played for different reasons. The Buccaneers was because they were slanting their line and giving up the corners. Against the Jets it was primarily because they were dropping more guys into coverage a lot of times and playing a lot of man coverage, so that is sometimes forces you to do that. It is something that I have paid more attention to. I have always subscribed to the philosophy that as a pocket passer I have my spot in the pocket and my lineman need to know where I am and I still believe that is true. It makes it easier for them to do their job if they know I am going to be six, seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, but there also are times it has become more and more apparent when I can make some plays moving outside of the pocket. It doesn't mean that I am going to become a scrambling quarterback. I think everybody recognizes that I have some limitations in that area, but there are times when I can buy a little more time and try to make something out of a play that is broken down.
Q: For a professional passer…
D: My preference is to sit in there and throw the ball to somebody else with timing and precision. I am always going to me a more accurate passes when I can sit back there and throw and that is not going to change, but when I can make something out of a play when there wasn't anything there by design then it obviously gives us an advantage.
Q: (Dan) Marino was the master of pocket mobility. Have you ever look at any tapes of his?
D: I have been a huge admirer of Dan Marino and was a huge admirer of him for his entire career and he really was a master at making one guy or two guys miss in the pocket. That is just one of the many things that he did well over the years as a quarterback that I would like to emulate.
Q: Would you look at tapes of him at this point?
D: It's not a complicated technique or anything like that. It's just a matter of making sure that you continue to concentrate on your footwork and make sure that while you are sensing where the pressure is coming from and moving the pocket that you don't take your eyes off what's happening down the field. That is one thing that you have to be careful and disciplined about is that even though you are moving in the pocket and doing some things like that, that you maintain your concentration down field which is ultimately your first job.
Q: Monday night you made references to being on the same page as your offense, does that seem to be eating at you, what do you mean by that?
D: I think that to be effective offensively, and especially in our offense when we use multiple formations, multiple personnel groups, motion, shifts, all of that kind of stuff, in order for us to be successful in this kind of an offense everybody has to execute their assignment correctly on every play. The mental errors dropped dramatically from the first game to the second game. We were much better in the second game, but there still were some mistakes at some times that limited some scoring opportunities for us. For us to win games this year we have to eliminate those kind of mental mistakes.
Q: How have your receivers done in getting open?
D: I think that we are presenting them with opportunities where they can get single coverage. We are presenting them with opportunities to get open and I think for the most part they are doing a very good job. We obviously got the ball to Terry (Glenn) a lot more this last game than we did in the first one. Troy Brown wasn't as big a part of the game plan, but both of those guys are going to, at different times be huge parts of the game plans for us.
