Head Coach Tom Coughlin

Q:  Looks like Ahmad Bradshaw didn't practice again today?A:  No, he didn't.

Q: Still the same soreness?A:  He is a little better; he is a little better.

Q:  Do you expect him tomorrow?A:  I do.  I think we will get him tomorrow.

Q:  Adam Koets is back out?A:  Yeah, he practiced.

Q:  Is he good to go?A:  Looks like it.  He was encouraged by today.  He thought he would feel better tomorrow again.  So I'm encouraged by that.

Q:  Any progress with Keith Bulluck at all?
A:  They are trying some different things.  We'll see.  I don't know about this week, but we'll see if we can get him for next week.

Q:  Are you surprised when a guy like Arian Foster seems to come out of nowhere and make the kind of impact he has?
A:  I'm not surprised by anything, to be honest with you – not anymore.  A guy gets in the program, he gets working, he understands the -- he is obviously talented – but he understands the system; takes full advantage of it; a good football player – more power to him.

Q:  Houston is a franchise that has not made the playoffs before.  You took an expansion team to the playoffs four of your first five years.  Would you talk about the challenges of starting a team from scratch, basically?A:  You are asking me – why don't you ask Gary Kubiak?

*Q:  I asked him and he actually referenced you.  But he didn't start the team from scratch.    *A:  Good players, good backing, good system – that is usually how it works – good coaching.

Q:  Any update on Mathias Kiwanuka?
A:  Not really.

Q:  What about Shaun O'Hara?
A: The same.

Q: Has he tried to do anything on it?A:  Yes he did.  As I told you the other day he tried it and wasn't very successful with it.

Q:  How is Osi Umenyiora?A:  Good.  He moved well.

Q:  Will he be a game time decision?
A:  Well, we will see how he is tomorrow.  Right now I would say no, but barring any setbacks – but we'll see.

Q:  You have Guy Whimper around today?A:  Guy was actually visiting.   I said hello to him.  You have to keep all of your options open.

Q:  You expect anything there by the end of the day?A:  We'll see.

Q:  Is that a reaction to the offensive line being banged up?
A:  That would be my guess. 

Q:  Have you ever known Rich Seubert to be quiet?A:  Never.  When I'm talking he is.  But he likes to stir it up, that's for sure.  He is good at it, too.

Q: As a coach, does he ever cross the line?  Does it ever irritate you?A:  No.  He is pretty good about keeping it under control.

Q:  You guys have played Barry Cofield in pass rush situations.  What makes him good at that?A:  Quickness, quick start, good quick first step.  Having to defend everything, Barry does a real good job of smelling the run, the pass, screens as well.  So he is a nice plus in there. 

Q:  Does it matter that he is back to full strength – he has that quickness back?
A:  I certainly think he feels good.

Offensive Coordinator Kevin Gilbride

Q: In the past few years, how has the experience of watching film changed the game?
A: You know, nothing has changed in that respect in terms of the film watching. I think that's been going on for my 22 years in this league and even when I was in college – you watched as much film as you could. I think the thing that has evolved and altered it a little bit is the internet. There are so many things now that you can just say, Okay, give me every first and ten on the left hash between the 40 and the minus 40. Before you couldn't do that, you had to do it by hand and it just slowed down the whole process. The accessibility of a lot of different, very specific information probably gives you some insight into...this is what they're going to do exactly, at least this is what their history has been exactly, in this situation. So, in that sense, that's probably what's changed. I don't know if the film watching has changed – obviously at one time it was film, now it's video and all of that other stuff, but in terms of watching games, we've always watched as many games as we can, so I don't know if that has changed but certainly the fact that you can just punch in and get something to show and say, alright I want to watch every second and one to three on the right hash and all the sudden you've got it. Before you didn't have access to that, so it's probably allowed you to be a little bit more responsive to what the information is showing you. When that situation occurs again, maybe you've zeroed in a little bit more exactly what you want to call in that situation.

Q: How has Mario Manningham matured and developed in the time he's been here?
A: I think that it's the natural maturation that comes from just growing up. As you get older, experience more of life and some of the good and some of the bad – and he's had to deal with it all – I think there's just naturally that growth and development that takes place, but I would also add that I think that his determination to be a special player has also forced him now to maybe bear down more than he had to in college, just because he was probably physically better than everybody. Here he's still physically very competitive with anybody, but now you have to win with technique and understanding. We ask him to do a lot of different things, which we ask of all of our receivers – I'm not sure that that was always the case when he was in college. The good thing is that he's very positive. He wants to be very good, he wants to be special, so his work ethic is excellent. There's a complete commitment by him to be an elite receiver, which is terrific.

Q: David Diehl is back at left tackle today?
A: Mm hmm.

Q: Why did you guys want to take a look at Shawn Andrews at left tackle yesterday?
A: Because that's where he's been working. He's still in the learning stages so if he was playing guard, then we would have left him at guard, but he was playing tackle, so all the sudden putting him at guard would have been an invitation to more mistakes than we wanted to have, so play him at tackle…he actually had maybe as good of a practice as he's had since he's been here, so it was very encouraging to see what…you know, you saw the athleticism that we all know he has – it was handicapped by not being sure what to do, so he looked good. It was encouraging to see. If we have to do that, I think we feel good about it.

Q: What is the effect of losing Madison Hedgecock and putting in Bear Pascoe – how does that affect the types of things that you're able to do?
A: It really doesn't change anything. It probably gives us a little more versatility in this sense – and that's not a disparagement of Madison, I don't mean that, but Madison is in and you're in a two back, that's what you are, so people defend you very…hey this is what they are in this formation, this personnel grouping, this is what they do, so they can really load up on certain things. With Bear, the nice thing is that you can do just about everything that you could do with Madison and the two backs, but now you can also line him up with the two tight ends, one on either side, and it much more resembles what we were like when we had Michael Matthews and we were doing some things like that. So, you lose a powerful, bruising, dominant type of blocker, but maybe you gain a little bit more versatility and hopefully that'll make us a little bit more difficult to defend.

Q: What are you hopes for Ahmad this week?
A: I just hope Ahmad is feeling good enough. He's been playing great football for us, so hopefully he'll be feeling good enough that he can go out and perform the way he has.

Q: What difference does Cushing make?
A: Well, he's a good player. Any time you add another good player to the mix, it just complicates your life on the offensive side, so yeah, he's just a very good football player. It adds one more good football player to a team that already has more than we wish they had.

Q: So you feel like your game plan isn't affected by the uncertainty of who is actually going to play?
A: Not really. I mean, if you didn't think that certain guys could go in and step in then I think we'd be more concerned, but we'd feel good if we had to play Shawn, we could do so. I think we feel good – Bear has kind of shown that he can play the fullback position. You always wish you had all your starters. You wish Shaun O'Hara was back and all of those other things, but I think that we feel that if we have to work certain guys in that we feel confident that they'll do a good job for us.

Defensive Coordinator Perry Fewell

Q: With Kiwi out and Pierre-Paul, a rookie, being asked to step up. How ready is he for it now compared to a month ago?
A: We made a lot of progress with him off of last week's game. We've just been spoonfeeding him, spoonfeeding him, and then last week he stepped up to the plate. He made some plays in there, he gained some confidence, we gained some confidence and we can spoonfeed him a little bit more, so we'll just keep giving it to him and we're going to turn him loose and let him play.

Q: He wasn't officially part of the sack parade. What did he do that you liked?
A: He was hitting his right gaps. He was executing the defenses that we called. He had really no mental errors. On the pass where he intercepted the ball – you don't count that stat – we were ecstatic because that was a defense that we had just put in on Wednesday and he had only had two or three reps at it and we were wondering is he going to remember to do it and all that type of thing and boy, he hit it just right and he showed that he had good hands on the play. It's just unfortunate that the play was nullified.

Q: He dropped in that right?
A: Yes he did.

Q: Which is something he's probably not that familiar with…
A: Exactly. Yes. So we were very excited about continuing to give him information that he can use and him executing the information that we're giving him.

Q: Do you anticipate the Texans using a lot of extra help against your pass rush, more than the Bears?
A: You know, this is really a different offense that we're going to face. It's a run type offense. They execute the play action pass, they try to stay on schedule with not putting themselves in long yardage situations, so it's a little bit of a different philosophy going into this football game than last week.

Q: It seems like Foster has come out of nowhere. What has allowed him to become one of the premier backs in this league? Or is it really more the scheme of what they're doing?
A: It's a good scheme. It's really a good scheme and you have to be disciplined defensively and if you're not, they can crease you, and then he's good – he has good vision, and when he sees the hole, he can plant his foot and turn up in the hole, and he has enough speed that he can accelerate through that hole and gain 10, 12, 14…sometimes take it the distance. So, it's a little bit of both – he's got good vision plus they have a good scheme and it's a tough scheme to defend against.

Q: Are we talking like a Broncos scheme where you can plug anybody in there and they seem to run well?
A: I would say yes. I'm not calling him anybody because he's playing really well right now, but this is the Denver Broncos scheme. No doubt about it.

Q: What are the challenges of facing a zone blocking scheme?
A: Well, when you play a team like this, they like to cut block you and that type of thing and they get your hands down, so they take your mind off of, I've got to stay in this gap or I've got to do this, because they're trying to protect themselves a lot. So, we've just got to get over that mental barrier of…hey, it's going to happen man, but we've got to be where we need to be though.

Q: Is this the most balanced team you've faced so far? Do you think you'll learn more about your defense this week?
A: It is definitely the most balanced team we've faced. Solid, solid run game, excellent pass game off the play action, they can drop back and throw it, so it will be a challenge for us, but I think that we can rise to the occasion. I think we can play well against these guys.

Q: Is this really where you have to be sound in your gaps?
A: No question. You have to tackle well against these guys. You must knock them off schedule. We want to create third and long situations for them and they don't have a lot of third and long situations. If you look at them statistically, they're a third and three team, third and four team and they can throw the quick game out there to those receivers and then it's first down again. It's going to be a big challenge for us to play first down very well against this football team.

Q: This would have been a game where Keith Bulluck probably would have played a lot.
A: No question.

Q: Without him is it more Clint Sintim or Deon Grant?
A: Probably both. We're not going to hold anything back from a personnel group, but Sintim will play a lot. Yes, he's going to play a lot in this football game.

Q: The last time he was out it was a different type of offense…
A: Yes, Tennessee was more of this type of offense.

Q: So this will be the most reps that Sintim has had?
A: Yes. I would definitely say that.

Q: Is he ready for this?
A: Oh, he's ready. I tell you, he's put in an excellent week of practice. We've liked the way he's focused and the way he's taken on the challenge of, hey I'm going to step up and do my part. So we've just got to wait until Sunday to see if he can fulfill that role.

Q: Is this the kind of game that your front four is made for?
A: You want to say that as a football coach. You better hope that they're built for this because, again, this is a tough offensive scheme, so you would like to say, yes, your front four is built for this and they can play the run and convert and play the pass.

Q: Did you get a look at Foster at all last year because he came in at the end of the season…
A: We played them last year. He played a little bit against me when I was at Buffalo last year. I remember the power and him having the good vision and being able to hit the hole and find the creases.

Q: With his size and speed, what does Deon Grant allow you to do versatility-wise?
A: When I use Deon, I use the veteran experience, the knowledge and the know-how, that sixth sense of I'm supposed to…I can see the offensive formation, I've been here before, I've done that, so he's almost like a guy that you can just say, Hey, Deon, when you see this, can you remember this? And if you can remember this, can we play this this way? And he can execute these things for you whereas a rookie or a second or third year player is just trying to get lined up in the right spot and execute the defense that's called. I use a lot of Deon's knowledge and know-how from an experience standpoint.

Q: It seems like he's almost built more like a linebacker. Does that enable you to do anything differently?
A: Not really. Not from that standpoint. I just try to use him…he matches up well with some of the tight ends that we play against and we feel like that's a good thing for us. Can he go in and play the run? Yes, he can from a size standpoint, but I don't really try to use him in that sense.

Q: With Kiwi sidelined, is that part of the package out of the defense for now?
A: No, it's not. As a matter of fact, we used that package on Sunday night. We plugged someone else in that role. We might temper it down a little bit with him being out, but we still use the package.

Q: What was it like for you to watch that on Sunday night? Ten sacks…
A: I just was excited to see it, number one, but I really didn't harbor…I didn't really take it all in. I had to move on to the next game or the next opponent. I didn't take a lot of time to just cherish it because as a ball coach you're like, okay we won this one, what about the next guy?

Q: Even on Sunday night you weren't enjoying it?
A: Oh, you're jacked up! You can't sleep. After something like that, you go home and you try to sleep – you can't. You're up until two or three o'clock and you're like, wow. That's all you can do. You just go 'wow.'

Q: But you had already started thinking Texans almost right after the game?
A: No doubt. Let's win the next one.

Q: Do you prepare like Andre Johnson is going to play?
A: No doubt.

Q: Where do you rank him?
A: We play against some good receivers…boy…he's right there. He's a headache. Gosh he's a headache – size, speed, he's on the same page with his quarterback. Plus, the run game hurts you a little bit from the play action. Yeah, he's right there at the top. He's a Pro Bowler.

Q: As far as defensive line performances, is that as good as you've seen a unit play on Sunday?
A: Yes. That's the best I've ever been around. That's absolutely the best I've ever been around from a performance standpoint, yes.

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