Q: You always talk about stopping the run first. Does that priority change when you're playing the Colts?
A: No, it doesn't. If you don't stop the run, Joseph Addai will shred you and he is a very big runner. He does a great job of cutting back. I call him a jump cut runner and so that's one of the priorities. You must stop the run against these guys.
Q: Were you surprised that he only ran the ball 10 times in the last game?
A: Yes I was. They are not a high percentage run team by nature, but only 10 touches for him was a surprise.
Q: Is this a bad week to have a couple guys banged up in the secondary?
A: It's always a bad week in the National Football League when you have some of your secondary guys banged up because it's a passing league. It's really turned into a passing league. And yes, you must stop the run, but you need four, five, sometimes six DBs all the time in the National Football League.
Q: Do you have the numbers to have that on Sunday?
A: I think we do.
Q: How much of the stuff that Peyton does at the line do you think is for show and how much of it is really him making those changes up there?
A: I think probably 50% of it is show and probably 50% of it is communication with his offensive line, with his offensive football team. He runs the offense, as we all know, and I think that when he gets up and he's talking to those guys or telling them what he wants or what he sees, they've got great respect for what he's saying to them. Now, if it's all dummy, then they've got great respect because they'll listen and the play is normally a successful play, so he's doing something right up there when he's talking to them.
Q: What's the preparation level like when you play a run team like Carolina vs. a pass team like the Colts?
A: I think that the level of intensity is all the same because each opponent is unique in what they do. If it's a run team, it's uniqueness in stopping that particular run play and then moving on to the next play. It's the same way with a pass-run team or a run-pass team like the Colts, but you can't just always focus on Peyton, you have to focus on concepts, you have to focus on the receivers and understand splits, so you have to broaden your horizons a lot more when you're playing a team that's a wide open football team like the Colts.
Q: In terms of the no-huddle, you guys had a lot of sub-packages last week. Are you able to do that when you can't get off the field?
A: That's a great question. I'm not sure if we'll be able to do that or not. I don't know if he will allow us to do that. He's very aware of when you bring someone on, he gets his offensive football team to the line of scrimmage and snaps the ball. He tries to catch you with 12 on the field, so we'll have a plan in place. We want to use our personnel, we want to do certain things, so we'll have a plan in place for that.
Q: Could you get caught with the wrong package too where he can audible out of something?
A: It's a possibility, but that's the chess game that we'll play on Sunday.
Q: Do you have fun as a defensive coordinator knowing that you're playing Peyton Manning on Sunday?
A: Oh, no doubt. That's the great thing about coaching in the National Football League, you have an opportunity to go against the best, you have the opportunity to face Peyton Manning, so it's a challenge to go against him to see if you can match wits with him. If you coach against New England, you go against Brady and Belichick. It's always exciting and fun to go against the best in our league, so yeah, you definitely get jacked up. You're jacked up during the course of the week, you're trying just to calm down to make it to Sunday.
Q: You got them in a snowstorm in Buffalo didn't you?
A: Yes, I did. If it can snow in Indy and I can get that roof opened, it'd be great.
Q: How about a young guy like Jonathan Goff calling the shots in this "chess match?"
A: Well, it's the communication with our linebackers and myself as well as our linebackers coach, because our linebacker is the quarterback. So, can our quarterback match wits with their quarterback, and can we put him in the situations that he can get us in the right defenses that we can move properly and show Peyton certain things that we want him to see or that we don't want him to see. So, yes, Goff will be involved in that match also, no doubt about it.
Q: How do you get him to separate the dummy calls from the real calls?
A: I don't think we focus on that, because if you do, you're taking away from what you do. I think we have to focus on what we do and what we want him to see and then let Peyton do what he always does.
Q: Can we read anything into the struggles you had against the no-huddle in the preseason game against Baltimore?
A: I think that's a good game for us to watch. I think that's a good game for us that we learn from. We've definitely improved our communication system since then and we're definitely aware of a rally or a no-huddle situation and we're going to be better with it, I feel, when Sunday comes, so I think that that was a good preseason warm-up for what we have to face.
Q: Some defensive coordinators might lose sleep on a week that they're going to face Peyton Manning...
A: I lose sleep every week. But again, you're playing the Colts, you're playing Peyton. It's Sunday Night Football. Where would you rather be?
Q: How much can he learn from looking at your Buffalo film?
A: I'm not sure. I know he's an avid studier of game film and that type of thing...I'm not sure.
Q: What kind of a challenge is Dallas Clark?
A: He's one of the main targets. He and Reggie Wayne...that's a matchup that people in the league haven't been able to solve because he's the "X factor" in the whole deal - he has probably more catches than any other receiver besides Wayne on the squad, so we're still trying to solve that puzzle.
Q: What did you like the most about your defense's performance last week?
A: The energy that they played with and their attitude when they stepped on the field. If there was a sudden change situation, it didn't seem to faze them, they just wanted to go out and play football. It looked like they had fun doing it and I enjoyed watching them have fun doing that.