Q: Has the game film from last Sunday been burnt?
TB: We learned a lot of things and now we are going to try to get back on the winning track. It was the first time we have lost in a while. I'm anxious to go back out there and practice.
Q: You always try to make improvements from the last week. Where do you start for this game against St. Louis?
TB: You try to look at the film and understand why the problems were made and you just try to correct them. That is kind of what we do every week. Whether we win or lose, it is kind of the same thing. There are just more lowlights when you lose.
Q: How much different is it coming out of a loss?
TB: You obviously look at the game film a little more critically and everyone realizes what they could have done better and says, 'What play could I have made to try to help us win?' We just have to play better. I think that is a lot of what it comes down too. We are going to go out and practice hard. We are playing an excellent team this week. You'd like to think it gets easier, but it doesn't. It only gets harder.
Q: How difficult will it be to improve with the injuries you now have to deal with?
TB: I think a lot of the teams in this league are dealing with injuries right now. We happen to be one of them. We have been dealing with them all year. The guys who are stepping in and playing have to play well. Everyone else has to pick up for the guys who are going to be out. We lose two corners and the guys who step in have to play well. I don't think St. Louis is going to care very much. I think they are as happy as can be that Ty [Law] and Tyrone [Poole] aren't playing. That is what they are doing.
Q: You have to be confident that you have overcome injuries before with depth and game-planning?
TB: Definitely. I think the team prides itself on practicing hard and having guys that can fill in and play well. We have guys that know the scheme and know what it takes and know what they need to do and their role. When you lose Ty Law, you lose quite a bit, but at the same time hopefully a lot of the other guys on defense and offense as well kind of fill in for those voids. When there is a void, it needs to be filled. Guys in the locker room are planning to do everything we can to try to fill that.
Q: What type of priority is being placed on preparing for dome noise and not committing four turnovers this week?
TB: Preparing for the noise you can actually do stuff to help that and you can practice with some crowd noise in our little dome out there, baby dome. As far as the turnovers go, we just have to take better care of the ball. We just can't have interceptions. We can't have fumbles, especially against this team. They feed off that. You give those guys the ball on a short field, you can bet that they are going to be putting it in. That is a big point of emphasis this week as it is every week. That level of concentration needs to go up and [we need to] quit making those stupid mistakes.
Q: I know that you aren't going to make any excuses, but when you don't have your running back do you try to force some things?
TB: Looking at this last game, I don't think it was really forcing stuff. I think they just made some good plays. There are different reasons, but like I said those aren't excuses. You make bad plays in the game and sometimes your bad plays are incomplete passes and sometimes they are an interception returned for a touchdown. You just hate having those interceptions return for a touchdown because they ultimately become too tough to overcome. That is what happened last week. We made too many mistakes early in the game that there was no way that we could come back from that. We tried and fought hard, but in the end it just wasn't enough.
Q: Do you get the sense that St. Louis is going to be a little geared up for what happened in the Super Bowl in 2001?
TB: I'm sure they will be geared up. They are playing at home and they are coming off a bye week. Our coach gave us a stat that they have won the last four years after their bye week by a hundred points or something like that. I think they will be fired up enough as it is for that. In terms of rivalry, there are so many new guys. It is not very much on our minds.
Q: What do you see in their defense?
TB: They have an excellent defense that is very fast. They are very disruptive. They have a Hall of Famer in there in Aeneas Williams. Adam Archuleta is a great player. They have some guys on the defensive line that can really play. They have some linebackers that are very active. We have our hands full. We are going to do everything we can to try to give our defense some help in terms of trying to stay on the field. They make it tough though.
Q: Is there anything you can take from the Super Bowl matchup and apply it to this game?
TB: It is a different defensive coordinator and a different scheme. A few of the same players are there. Aeneas Williams is there. Leonard Little is there. Some other guys who are really good players are there. In terms of scheme and stuff, most of that has changed. Plus, I don't remember that game very well. That was so long ago.
Q: What do you think of the challenge your defense has on Sunday? Does that put extra pressure on the offense assuming that you are going to have to put up some significant points?
TB: Hopefully our defense goes out and plays as well as we all think they are capable of. We are going to try to play independent of those guys. We are going to try to score as much as we can. We realize how important that is because you just don't want to give them the ball. You don't want to go three-and-out and turn over the ball against them. You want to be able to control the clock. Last week we had the ball for 17 minutes. You leave your defense on the field for 43 minutes, it is just too tough. It is important for us to stay on the field.
Q: That is a pretty good defense you are playing against this weekend?
TB: Yes. It sure is. They are an excellent defense. They have been playing well. Last year they led the league in takeaways. They are very disruptive. They run around. They are fast. They are very active. They are tough. They hit. They tackle well. They do a lot of really good things.
Q: The interesting thing about this week is that you have to take care of ball obviously but you may get into a situation where it turns into a shoot-out.
TB: With the quarterback there is always a little bit of risk and reward there. You don't want to risk a lot to gain two yards. If you have a shot down the field and you take it there is some pretty good reward there also. You don't want to make bad decisions. You don't want to turn the ball over for the sake of turning it over and make bad plays, but at the same time you don't want to be in there gun shy at all either. If a guy is open you throw it. If you think they are covered, you don't throw it. You don't say, 'They are covered, I'm going to throw it anyway.' Sometimes you do. You try to win and hit those too.
Q: You guys weren't that bad at moving the ball in the second half especially when you went to the shotgun. Did you feel the same way?
TB: We were kind of forced into that. I thought we did do some things well in the second half, but the mistakes we made in the first half they kind of forced us into that situation. You try to stay out of those types of situations. When the defense knows you are throwing the ball on every down, I thought we did a decent job of continuing to move the ball and score points.
Q: Is there a different feeling in the locker room this week then there has been the last 21 or so weeks and are you playing angry for the first time in a while?
TB: Usually after wins, you come in and the coach tells you all the wrong things you did and you feel bad about winning, but now we actually just feel bad about losing. There is justification for feeling bad now. You just try to figure out what you did wrong and try to correct it.
