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Q: How are you doing?
TB: I'm doing good, just starting the week. You know it is always a long day for us getting the game plan, just the initial preparations. It is good though. Last week is done, we've got to move on.
Q: Has Damon Huard helped you? He knows Miami; can he use that to help you?
TB: Yeah, Damon is great helping with personnel. He knows their guys better than certainly any of us. Larry Izzo is going to be a big help. Those guys have a lot of familiarity with their style, the stuff that you can't see on tape, that it's really good with.
Q: What makes Miami's defense good? What do they do well?
TB: They do, as coaches say, 'They do what they do.' They line up and they play and they have a style and they attack. It looks like they have really good team speed on defense. They have very good corners. Zack Thomas is a force. That pass rush, Jason Taylor, he really makes that defense. So they put a lot of pressure on the offense. Indy did it with more of a blitzing scheme and this team does it with more just their style of play, their overall aggressiveness.
Q: Much harder to run against them?
TB: Yeah, they've got two big guys in the middle who take up a lot of space, which allows Thomas to run around and make a lot of plays. They've got seven guys up their in the front that they feel are comfortable against our seven blockers. Any time they do that, they can commit another guy to pass coverage, which just strengthens everything.
Q: Do you see a difference in your offensive line since training camp started? There is some talk that they are starting to come together, do you notice it?
TB: I think so, yeah. I think there is definitely more of a confidence about them. They have been playing together. Mike Compton has been back. [Matt] Light is starting to play better. Everyone is just feeling comfortable with each other. And as an offensive line that is what it is all about. Last year, and I don't want to get into last year too much, there just wasn't that continuity. Anytime the offensive line could be together for a period of time, it just helps with the comfort of being next to each other and the calls and the situations that you are in, the help that you can get from another guy.
Q: Do you expect their defense to come out more aggressive with what happened with them and St. Louis last week?
TB: Well I think you'd always kind of expect their best. Last year they were division champs so we know what we've got ahead of us. It's going to be a tough week, especially for our offense. They've got a great defense. They proved it to us twice last year and it looks like they really picked up where they left off, you know this year.
Q: What in your life has changed in the last seven days?
TB: There's just probably not as much free time, doing stuff like this. I'd normally be down eating lunch right now. So just the phone calls and they type of stuff, that is probably pretty much the biggest difference. When I am here the preparation, like I said last week, is the same. Just more the off field stuff, just a little less free time, which is fine because I like being busy.
Q: If your success should continue, you've been in a quarterback controversy with Drew Henson at Michigan, is that just another part of it to deal with?
TB: As I said before, I never look at it like that. I just look at it that I am preparing this week to play and I let everyone else talk about who should play and who should not play. That goes on at every level and like you said it has been something that I have been a part of. And the one approach that has worked for me and why I continue to approach it the way I do is that I just control my performance. If that is good enough, hey that's good enough. When they say play, I play. When they say don't play, I don't play. So it is just comforting for me, and I sleep better at night, knowing that I've done what I could do and the rest is left up to other people who are making the decisions.
Q: Has some of the early conversation among the players today been about building on what happened last Sunday, but it is a new week and you have to be tested again and make sure to stay consistent?
TB: That is exactly what it is. That week is done. You learn more so from the mistakes of what we had and you move on because if you don't, if you are just going from week to week…I mean the Colts came in last week 2-0 and you'd think they'd be riding high and we were looking up at the division. Now we kind of put ourselves back in a better position. I think the approach we are going to take is that we are going out to prepare just like we prepare every week. Certainly there is probably a feeling of, a better feeling this week than there was last week, but at the same time that was last week and you can't get too excited knowing that you are going down to Miami for a team that's been very successful.
Q: Haven any of the veteran leaders spoken about that this morning?
TB: I mean we just got in this morning so I'd probably know more tomorrow. I mean I know everyone prepares hard every week. Everyone knows what we've got. This is a great team and we are playing them on the road. Weather conditions are going to be obviously a little different than the wind we had last week, hopefully.
Q: How many games have you had in Florida?
TB: I played in the Citrus Bowl once. I played there three times, four times…I played there about five or six times. College, three times.
Q: What was your record, in college games?
TB: I played there my last two years, in two bowl games, and we won them both, once in the Orange Bowl and once in the Citrus Bowl.
Q: You are a California guy; do you like playing in the heat?
TB: You know it doesn't matter much to me, it doesn't matter. It is nice from a standpoint that you are not all bundled up, but it is not like you mind playing in the cold. You kind of just go out and play whatever it is.
Q: Do you have to guard against either trying too hard to make a play or trying not to make a mistake, too cautious? Or do you just go out and do what Tom Brady does?
TB: That's exactly the case. My style is my style. If I see a chance to take a shot, I take a shot. If you don't see a chance to take a shot, you dump it. You really take the approach…you try to dictate by formation and by play what you want the defense to do, but how they react to that is something totally different. Then that is when you are reacting to what they are doing. As coach says, every play is always designed to score. So it is just a matter of whether the defense takes that away or not.
Q: It sounds like they don't react too much to formations, it's kind of like, 'we do what we do and you deal with it?'
TB: That's right. They line up and they have pretty much one or two fronts and one or two blitzes and their coverages vary a little bit. They like to match those corners up on the receivers and try to shut them down and let their linebackers take care of the rest.
Q: For you as a quarterback on the road, it has got to be different with the hostile crowd and all?
TB: A little bit, the communication is different. We get loud crowds here so we're dealing with that type of communication stuff. I think the thing that is different is the momentum changes. You can really get the momentum quickly when you are at home, whereas on the road if they make a play they've all of the sudden got the momentum back. I like playing on the road because there are probably a little less distractions. You go down there and it's just your guys and you know what you've got ahead, whereas here you are dealing with tickets and family members in town and that type of stuff.
Q: When you were growing up in high school and college which quarterback did you like?
TB: Probably someone who is not like me at all, Steve Young. I thought he was just everything you could look for. I mean he's got great feet. He's got a great sense of awareness. He makes the throws, leads the team. I was from San Francisco so I grew up watching Steve Young and Joe Montana. My mom always loved Joe Montana and I always loved Steve Young. We used to go back and forth.
