**
Q: What is it like here with six games to go and everything on the line? **
A: It's pretty normal, honestly. I know a lot of people outside of this locker room are going to make a big deal about it, but we can only control what we can control and that's playing one game at a time. Everyone knows about this vaunted six-game schedule, but honestly I think that puts us in a great light, a great position because we don't have any room for error. We play back to back to back to back to back great teams and I think this team will be up for them.
Q: How good was this bye week for you?
A: It was good to just step away from football and kind of relax a little bit and let your body heal a little bit and your mind kind of gets refocused. So I think this bye came at a great time for us.
Q: The Packers with Aaron Rodgers have won five straight games. What do you think about that challenge?
A: Huge. We've played a lot lately. This will be our third time in two seasons. You mentioned him first because he is the tick and the tock in that offense. He does so much for them and to stop them or to slow them down, you've got to definitely get a lot of pressure on him and kind of make him a little unnerved back there, which is not easy to do because he's one of the best at it. So we've got our work cut out for us, but we will be up for the challenge.
Q: Everyone knows what this team has done in the month of December. Do you think that it needs to start now in November?
A: It needs to start now. It definitely needs to start now. I think our sense of urgency has to be great and we have to come out of this bye running. We've got to hit the ground running and that's important for us leading up to the next couple of weeks to get that momentum back swung in our direction.
Q: How much do you guys relish challenges like this?
A: We do. We definitely do. We've been down this road before and I know the leadership and the veteran guys know what we're up against and we've come out of these situations on top more than not, but every year is different. We can't rely on the fact that we have the experience of being in these situations. We have to go out there and play the game and play it at a high level to be successful.
Q: What do you believe the one positive is from the bye?
A: A lot of things. Until the end of the year, you'll never know. You get to self-scout, you get to rest, you get the opportunities just to remove yourself from the rigorous schedule that we go through on a day to day basis and in a way it kind of revives you. So we'll see, but I think we're in a good place coming out of the bye.
Q: Did you look at the upcoming schedule during the bye week?
A: I know it, but I don't think about it. I said this last year and I'll say it again. To be the best, you've got to beat the best and we're going to get an opportunity to play some really, really good teams here and we'll understand where we are if we're blessed enough to make it into the playoffs. We'll understand where we are coming out of these next six games because five out of six of them will be right in the mix of making the playoffs and the other one is one of the most dangerous teams in the league when they play their ball. So we'll definitely find out a lot about ourselves here soon.
Q: Did you guys lose any confidence in these last couple of losses?
A: No. Not confidence. Maybe a little focus. We lost a little focus. I think everybody on this team feels that we can be the best team in the league when we're playing our style of football. It's just unfortunate that we haven't played our style of football the last couple of weeks and we have to find a way to get back to playing that because it's going to be needed leading up into these next few weeks. But confidence? No. I think we always have been very confident. Sometimes maybe too confident, borderline cocky a little bit. But our confidence will never be a… I don't think it will ever waver on this team.
Q: Does it feel like you're anywhere near where you want to be with that style of where you can be the best team in football?
A: No. Go back and look at our last four games. (None) of those games were good games for us as a team. We won two of them, but the ball bounces a little differently or you've got a guy with a shorter finger and those games change a little bit. We're 6-4, but we're kind of blessed to be 6-4 and we realize that, but we're also knowing that a little bit here and there and we can be 9-1. That's football. You've got to go out and play the game and play at a high level all the time because you never put anything on anybody else's hands. You always try your best to have it in your hands and the times that we don't have it in our hands are the times we kind of lost the game.
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