HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (general comments) Wednesday, October 18, 2007
"It's fun to get back to work. It seems like a long time since we've been preparing for a game. A big game for us, the division lead at stake and playing on Monday night. I think our guys are excited. We seem to be healthy. I think we'll have everyone practice today, so we're as good as we can be I think."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on it being a big event, especially in Jacksonville) Wednesday, October 18, 2007
"I think it will be, and it should be. They're playing well, a four-game winning streak. They lost a tough game to Tennessee. Otherwise, you would probably have the same type of hype as we had last week. But they're that caliber of team. They're good, and I think their fans will be into it."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on a team saying they don't get any respect) Wednesday, October 18, 2007
"I guess you can't really worry about the fans. I think people in the NFL, the people that play against them realize they have a good team and how you have to prepare and how tough it is to win down there. I don't know what will have to happen to make them a household word around the country, but I think most people that know football know they're pretty good."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on when he came here, how important was turnover ratio) Wednesday, October 18, 2007
"It was the number one thing, because that is really what goes into determining whether you win or lose. You have two things you want to get accomplished when you come: number one is impress on the offense how important it is to take care of the ball, and that includes everybody, linemen and everybody else that you don't have errors that create turnovers, your special teams, you have to be careful with your ball handlers there; and then defensively, getting across to the team how important it is to take it away, and then getting those types of players on defense that can take the ball away. You can look back 40 years in football and giveaway-takeaway is the most important stat."
HEAD COACH TONY DUNGY (on how you stress the importance of turnovers and how you get that) Wednesday, October 18, 2007
"You bring that and you talk about that and you practice that way. The offensive guys had to get used to the defenders coming and tackling them from behind and stripping the ball and late whistles in practice to encourage everybody to run to it, to encourage those guys to hang on to it. And then, the more you're ahead, the less you tend to turn it over, the less chances you have to take and that type of thing. So it's a little bit chicken and egg thing. I think the mentality of, 'We're still going to be explosive on offense, we're still going to be aggressive, but we're going to try not to turn the ball over.' That's what you're tr
