Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes
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Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes Denver Broncos vs. Houston Texans • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 DENVER BRONCOS HEAD COACH MIKE SHANAHAN General: “First of all it’s always nice to find a way to win. As I told our team, sometimes you’re going to win games 10-9, other times you’re going to win games 41-39. You got to find a way to win. I thought our guys played extremely hard today. By no means was it perfect. We get a chance to go back and look at the positives and the negatives, and get better over the next couple weeks and get ready for (season opener) Kansas City.” On Broncos passing game: “We moved the football. We’ve been moving the football pretty good. We have not scored inside the red zone, and we’ve turned the football over. If you do that, good things usually don’t happen. Today we didn’t turn the football over until the last part of the two minutes, less than a minute to go. We moved the ball extremely well, and we got the ball in the end zone once we got in the red zone, so that was a plus.” On Bronco injuries to WR Triandos Luke and RB Mike Anderson: “Unfortunately, I think (Triandos) Luke is going to be alright, I think just a little sore shoulder. Mike (Anderson) I think is a little more serious, he felt the groin pop. The disappointing thing is that he wasn’t supposed to be in there. We had a couple guys go down; one guy goes down and he goes in there and it’s a little bit of a freak accident, especially at that position, one of the safer positions on that punt team. We just keep our fingers crossed and hope that it’s not too long but right now I don’t know.” DENVER BRONCOS PLAYERS S JOHN LYNCH General “The point of this game is to win, and that’s what we did tonight. It doesn’t matter if it’s preseason or not, you’ve still got to do it. I think we were a little sloppy at tackling early on in the game. Obviously, that is a fundamental that we have to master, and consistently make sure we’re doing. If we are going to be successful this season, we need to do that on every play. “When you talk about being great, which is what we want to be this year, we have to be great week in and week out. That all comes with great tackling and doing the little things that the top teams do. I’ve been around great defenses before, and I certainly know what it takes. “I think once we go back and look at the film, we’ll look at it and say, ‘That’s not good enough.’ We are going to see what we need to do, and we are going to fix it.” On His First Game at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium “I think I was so excited that I tried to go out there and knock people out instead of tackling them. But, I’ve been a pretty consistent tackler my entire career, so I’m not worried about that. It’ll just be great when I can get out there and do that for the first real ball game.” WR DARIUS WATTS On His Longest Catch of the Game – 45 yards “At first I thought it was deflected, and then I lost the ball in the lights. Then all of a sudden I came back and just caught it. At times like that you can’t think about anything. You just have to react and pounce on it. I have a lot of confidence going out there now and I am comfortable. I expect myself to make big catches all the time. I always expect big things from myself.” DE LUTHER ELLIS On Houston’s Early Touchdowns “I think it came down to missed tackles. We were in the backfield a lot, but there were times when we just couldn’t get them down. That sort of thing is frustrating because it is not just one guy, it is all eleven guys. If we were going to be a dominant defense, we all have to take care of things like that.” Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes Denver Broncos vs. Houston Texans • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 QB JAKE PLUMMER On his Performance “I made a couple throws tonight that I missed last week, but there were still some throws that could have been better. Overall we were a little better at moving the ball I thought. (The veterans) knew we were going to play in the third quarter. We all approached this one with a little more preparation. We all practiced well this week and I think it showed. Right now we are just going to get more practice and try to get better so we can be ready for KC.” “Last week we moved the ball well, but we didn’t get the touchdowns. This week we moved the ball well and we did score. I think if we had stayed in there longer we would have scored again. I think we could have taken the ball and marched it back in. As one unit, I think we do feel strong and that we’ll be ready for KC.” On RB Mike Anderson’s Injury “It just makes you sick to see something like that. As for playing ball, he is one of the toughest guys I’ve ever played with. If he’s out for awhile, one of those young guys needs to step up. There’s no more leeway, and there are no more second chances. It’s time for them to step up.” WR TRIANDOS LUKE On Making the Team “I feel pretty good right now. I’ve been making plays on all my opportunities, and I know the offense and its plays. Right now it’s just up to the coaches.” On his 74-yard Touchdown Reception “I was kind of stiff, because I hadn’t played the whole game at receiver. I just wanted to get in the end zone once I got the ball. I have not had a long touchdown like that since high school. I think it’s just one of those things where I’ve been watching (the veterans). You learn so much from them, and then of course, there’s all the coaching, too. But any time you can steal something like that from their game (i.e.. WR Ashley Lelie’s sideline speed/fly patters), it’s good.” SS NICK FERGUSON On his Big Special Teams Hit “Tonight, I just knew where to go. Some nights you just don’t have that. I guess tonight was just one of those. Right now, there was a lot of responsibility on our (special teams players’) shoulders, with (LB) Jashon (Sykes) and (LB) Terry (Pierce) down, we have to go out there and step it up. Special teams is one of those things that’s not bad to have on your repertoire. I like it and I take pride in making those kind of tackles. We all do, and if it helps the team, then we’ll do it.” DENVER BRONCOS DL TREVOR PRYCE On being double-teamed “It’s a thing where we know where the center is going, so I go the opposite way and let someone else do something.” On the defense giving up 14 points against the Houston Texans “We were looking at (the game in terms of) ‘we have to go out and get a little better because we have a little more time.’ They had a game plan. It was three receivers, two receivers, and two tight ends. We didn’t know where they were coming from that first series, but then we calmed down. We gave up a big play and that big play down there kind of hurt us. But without that big play they only scored seven points.” On his Performance “I’ve done some good things, and I’ve done some bad things that you all don’t know about. Right now, you can’t really evaluate a team in the preseason because we did not game plan for that team. But either way, you go out to dominate in every game. You don’t go out there to play well in one half and then give up 500 yards in another half. As long as you win, though, it doesn’t matter. This game will be a distant memory in ten weeks.” DENVER BRONCOS WR ASHLEY LELIE On why he was wearing Rod Smith’s jersey during the interview “I’m trying to get some inspiration today because of the way Rod played in the first half. I was just like, let me have your jersey. He’s not wearing any jersey right now. I don’t think he wants to wear mine.” Denver Broncos Postgame Quotes & Notes Denver Broncos vs. Houston Texans • INVESCO Field at Mile High • Friday, Aug. 27, 2004 On suffering any injuries during the game “On the second play of the game, I kind of got kicked in the shin. It’s just a little bruise, though. Nothing serious.” On the emergence of rookie WR Darius Watts “I’m all for it. It’s going to make us all better. It’s going to make our team better.