**
Q: What do you think for Sunday?**
A: I think everything is very positive for Sunday. Feeling very good. I don't feel like there's a limitation on it. Again, it's just I've got to get used to getting banged around a little bit. We're talking about three games in and we're talking about a total of nine practices. So it's not an excuse. I've got to be healthy. I've got to be out there. It's my responsibility to be out there on the field, so we're going to try to do everything in our power to get me back out there.
Q: Tom said there's a lot of similarities between the Bengals and the Steelers, particularly on the offensive line. Is that what you see?A: It is what you see. Those AFC North teams are built very similarly. It's smash-mouth football. They want to beat you up and then they're not too shy of letting you know about it. So it's a team that wants to establish their physical presence. They want to mush you, they want to maul you and then use that to set up the play-action pass, offensively. Defensively, they've got one of the better fronts in football. Special teams, they're a good outfit. So there are a lot of challenges that this football team presents to us, so we've got to make sure that we put them under the microscope, we do our due diligence and make sure that when we go to Cincinnati we're prepared to give ourselves the best opportunity to be successful.
Q: In 20/20 hindsight, if you look at what happened in the division this past week, is there no harm, no foul?
A: Obviously, we had a tremendous opportunity that we did not take advantage of. We understand that. We understand you can't let too many of those go by. Not in this business. You have to be on top of your game week in and week out, so we let one get away. Hats off to the Steelers. They played a great football game. They were physical. They hit us in the mouth, but the great thing about it is you get a chance to bounce back and this is an opportunity for our team to re-establish who we are going up to Cincinnati against a very good AFC North football team.
Q: Do you really have to bounce back since everybody else lost?A: Well, it's an opportunity lost. Even if everybody else in the division lost, we still lost an opportunity to take advantage and open up an even larger lead in our division. So you can't let those go by. We understand that in the NFC East, it's going to be a tough fight and every team is going to scrap and scrape and claw. So you have to take advantage of opportunities when you have them. You can't let them go by.
Q: A lot of guys were crediting the deficiencies in defending the run to missed tackles. Is that what you saw?
A: There were missed tackles. There were some issues with our fits. Speaking for myself personally, we've got to be more disciplined with run fits. We've got to be more physical at the point. I think that there's a lot of work we've been doing to clean up some things for some of the guys behind us. I think if we take care of our business, it makes it a lot easier for the guys in the back end. It always starts up front. For myself and the guys in the D-Line room, if we take care of our business, everything else seemingly falls in place.
[