Fox Q&A: Monday press conference
http://blogs.charlotte.com/panthers/2008/11/fox-qa-monday-p.html
Here's a transcript of Coach John Fox's Monday news conference with members of the media, including the Observer's Charles Chandler. Some questions and answers have been edited for brevity and/or clarity:
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Q: How is Jeremy Bridges, who missed the game yesterday?
A: He’s doing good. I think they said it was an irregular heartbeat. I don’t think it’s anything real serious, although anything to do with your heart is serious. From what I understand, he’s making improvements.
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Q: Has he had that diagnosis previously?
A: No. It was the first time. It was mostly precautionary. Our medical people felt it was better to go in a different direction for the game yesterday.
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Q: Was it the same kind of thing Mike Rucker had a few years back?
A: Very similar. Basically, it’s an irregular heartbeat is what I know. Much more than that, I’d be making up. I think they have it under control and we’ll evaluate it come Wednesday as far as his availability for Atlanta (next Sunday).
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Q: As you move back into NFC South play, talk about going to Atlanta, which has always been a tough place to play for the Panthers?
A: They’re playing well. I think they’re a markedly improved team. We’ve played them once already, so we’re familiar with them and they’re familiar with us. Anytime you go on the road in the division, it’s tough duty, so this will be a tough test for us.
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Q: How do you prepare your players to to get back into a tougher part of the schedule after playing two teams whose records aren’t good?:
A: I keep saying that’s how you guys look at it. You don’t play the game. They have to play the game, so all (games are) hard. They didn’t look at those two (vs. Oakland and Detroit in consecutive weeks) like they were a walk in the park – and they weren’t. If you asked Miami yesterday who played Oakland, I don’t think they thought it was a walk in the park. These guys know different.
Right now, the only thing we’re assured is 8-8 and every one of these is going to be important. The only one we’re focused on right now is this week’s, and that’s Atlanta.
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Q: Do you hearken back to 2003 when you were 8-2 and lost three in a row?
A: Every year (has) a new personality. The team is different, the coaching staff is different. I don’t think that will come to too many of these players’ minds, other than all our focus being on the Atlanta Falcons, which is every bit as much as we need to be focused on.
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Q: What things do you like in this team and what things do you think need to be improved on?
A: We’re improving. We improved yesterday in the run game. I think we’ve improved steadily throughout the season. We had to shuffle around the offensive line some to date. I think our coaching staff on that side of the ball has done an excellent job of adjusting with that. I think we’ve got two fine running backs (who) people are starting to notice, and we need to build on that. That being said, I think we can be more efficient in our pass game, not that it’s been lacking. It’s been 8-2. But it’s something I believe we can improve on, and I believe we will. We’ve shown glimpses of that, whether it be late in games, early in games or in the middle of that.
Yesterday, I thought we started a little bit slow defensively – more mentally than physically as far as where we fit. We did a couple of things movement-wise that didn’t fit perfectly, but all (are) things I think we can fix. As far as looking ahead to (the next) six (games down the stretch), I’m more looking ahead to the next one. I would hope that would be our team’s outlook.
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Q: Several defensive players said yesterday they were disappointed how they’ve played run defense the past two weeks. Have there been any common threads in those two games?
A: No, not really. Defense is about fitting, whether you’re fitting right in coverage or whether you’re fitting right in the run. We’ve done a little bit more defensively as far as moving the front and what not. It only takes one guy out of their gap. Sometimes it can cause a 5- or 6-yard gain. It’s not like we’ve been awful. (Oakland) had a little bit under 300 yards (total offense) and (Detroit was) just over 300 yesterday. I thought we were way better in the second half yesterday, so we just need to come out and start faster. We’re going to need to do that this week against Atlanta. But all are things that are fixable and overall I think that side of the ball has been pretty good. It’s good that they have their bar raised pretty high.
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Q: What’s been the problem in the passing game?
A: This is the ultimate team game. I don’t care if it’s the run game or the pass game. Two weeks ago was probably one of our poorer performances on the season. I thought yesterday was much better. But as we move forward, it’s an area I think we need to improve. … There really are probably not too many phases of our team right now where I think we’ve arrived and don’t need to improve anymore. We have a lot of areas to improve.
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Q: Were the 19 passing attempts, a low number, a byproduct of the fact that the running game was going so well?
A: I think one of our highest quarterback ratings in the history of this franchise, I think we threw seven passes that day. That was pretty efficient. We were 4 or 7 with one touchdown.
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Q: What did you think about Gary Barnidge getting kicked in head rushing the punter and getting called for roughing-the-kicker penalty?
A: That’s the ruling. It would get called like that probably 10 out of 10. We’d like to have it back. I think he’d like to have it back, because he did have an opportunity to block it. But the guy shanked it off to the left so bad he didn’t have the opportunity to. But we’ll work on that. He’s kind of new to that (punt defense) team. That’s as much our fault as anybody’s.
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Q: Earlier this year you said you’d prefer the secondary be referred to as ricochet rather than toast. When a guy (Charles Godfrey) makes a catch for an interception and gets grief in the locker room for not running it back for a touchdown, is there a happy medium you’d like to see?
A: Obviously, that cliché was in reference to not catching them, but always you’d like to catch them. It’s good our guys do have their bar set high. When they do catch them, they want to score. We’ll continue to work on that area to.
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Q: Players have talked about this being a close knit team compared to last year or the year before. Have you noticed that?
A: I think they enjoy each other. That’s unique. Most successful teams have that camaraderie or tightness, unity, whatever you want to call it. Winning helps that, without a doubt. But I saw early on that I thought these guys have invested a lot. They worked real hard starting in the offseason. … I would say they are a close bunch.
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Q: Is this the most under-the-radar 8-2 team you’ve ever been involved with?
A: I’m not really sure what `under the radar’ is, other than flight training. It’s hard to say what everybody else says because we don’t have time to look at that and see it for the most part. I couldn’t really comment on that.
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